Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Stream of Consciousness

I have now officially entered my 4th decade. How old does that make me sound?! I can tell you that I am a neon-loving child of the 80s, I entered my awkward teen years in the awkward 90s, I "grew up" in the 00s (a decade I still haven't evaluated), and now here we are in this brand new decade. What will define this decade for my generation, my country?

What can I say about the 00s. To me it doesn't feel like a decade has passed since the magical mystical year 2000. As a high schooler I thought it was so cool to be part of the class of 2000. That was the year I moved across the country to go to college, the year I met that man that would be my husband. College went by way too fast but I can tell you it was fun. Not in a wild way but in a wow, I can really do whatever I want when I want now kind of way. During the 00s I think I was trying to learn about things that interested me and figure out how I can make a living doing things that weren't too terribly boring to me. After college I thought it was my calling to help people so I volunteered a lot and worked with a lot of kids. Then I moved to DC and immersed myself in international relations. Now I've been working in a part of my field I had never imagined myself in before.

The past decade brought a lot of surprises, almost all of them good. It also simultaneously expanded and divided my family unit. I hope that this decade we can become more cohesive. For my personal life I hope for more, mostly good, surprises. So 2010s, please surprise and entertain me. I'm a child of the 80s, you know, MTV generation, ADD, pop culture, instant gratification, so clearly I need to be entertained.

1 comment:

Rachel said...

Omg, that means it's my 4th decade, too -- how did that happen?!?!

I love your writing, Shnicmar!

I haven't thought to evaluate to naughts yet either. Won't it be funny when everyone starts making fun of the crazy clothing styles that people wore back then? Will they? Or has fashion diluted itself too much? (Like when my mum was little, people HAD to wear skirts that fell within ONE INCH of some length to be fashionable... and now there is so much more lenience). I haven't evaluated the naughts in terms of pop-culture either but I am interested to see how history evaluates them...