Looking back on the decade

Since I was born at nearly the end of 1979, my ten-year age milestones coincide nicely with the turning of the decades. As we say good-bye to the oughts (an unfortunate name but I haven’t heard anything better), so I say good-bye to my twenties.


The oughts and my twenties, they were a tumultuous time: wild at the beginning for me, and downright unruly toward the end for the oughts.

Ten years ago, I had no idea who I was, but I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to get get away, and so I did. First to England, for a summer abroad, and then to Florida, for a bacchanalistic year of shaking my emotional groove thang. I fought hard to figure out who I was and vowed never to lose myself.

As my confidence grew amid controversies of hanging chads (of which I was blissfully ignorant, thanks to a steady TV diet consisting of early, bad reality television and the occasional episode of Blind Date), the tech bubble sputtered its last breath. While earning my $5.65 per hour (yes, really), I was surrounded by liberal arts grads making little more than I. A game plan was in order.

Back to school I went, and then down came the towers, right in the middle of my English class. Our world was never the same again.

But onward we went because that’s how it has to be. I bought my first car, the sturdy and reliable Island Corolla. Next came interviews, a job offer, graduation, and then a move to the city, a studio apartment of my own because every magazine I ever read said that you had to live by yourself at least once.

I lived paycheck to paycheck, trying to pay off college credit card debt—an experience that taught me that credit card debt eats away at your soul and is to be avoided at all costs, and the definition of comfort is an emergency fund—as the economy struggled to recover, as people mourned the loss of stock options while taking jobs with significant pay cuts.

I paid off my debt, found roommates and a cheaper apartment, learned to offset my reality television intake with the study of current events, and tried to come to terms with the fact that my job was killing me slowly.

And then I met B. Rather, since we had worked together for over two years, I cast my eyes in his direction, and our story unfolded.

Time flew. My soul demanded an escape, so it was time for me to find a new job. Inspired by a life outside the castle, B followed suit. And as the housing market, the second major bubble of the decade, became more and more inflated, the lure of real estate was difficult to resist.

Oh, hindsight. But how I do love our house, despite our lengthy commutes and the overly aggressive neighbor who broke our doorbell. (Long story.)

And then came a proposal, on the evening of a blizzard, and wedding plans began in earnest. A honeymoon in Paris and Nice followed, and a year later, we watched the financial markets collapse from the comfort of our Florence hotel suite. Farewell, Lehman and Bear. Farewell, healthy 401k plans.

The next year, we elected a new president. I felt more comfortable traveling in other countries. I vowed to continue traveling as much as I could, for long as I could. And so we have.

The decade has come to a close, as have my twenties, and I can honestly say that if I were allowed to travel 10 years back in time to the beginning of the decade, I would smile, relive some fond memories, and politely decline. I’ve earned my place in life and have no intention of giving it up.

Here’s to the next decade; maybe it be as informative and fascinating as its predecessor.