How will you welcome 2010?
Are you thinking of your New Year’s celebration, and getting ready to party hard? Or are you contemplating the past decade, assessing the ups and downs of ten tumultuous years on the world stage?
What about your own ten years in review?
As you prepare to greet the change in decade with 2010 less than two days off, will you assess your past years?
How will you score them, rate them, learn from them, or… will you ignore them?
The decade in review: world history
Some of us are sorting through memories, many of which are intertwined with staggering events in recent years. The millennium has seen heinous acts of terrorism, wars that continue on multiple fronts, the economy, which has slammed millions of families, and devastation from natural causes including the 2004 Tsunami, and Hurricane Katrina. These events have touched us globally, locally, and very personally.
Our historic moments have also included renewed pride in our country in the past year. We still have troubles and hard work ahead, but we have hope we didn’t have a few years back.
The decade in review: personal history
When it comes to personal history, are you tallying up wins and losses? Putting together a personal scorecard of sorts, to see how you’ve done?
Ten years is a long time; a great deal of life can “happen” – planned and unplanned. Some of us are seeking to make peace with ghosts, needing to dust off our positive attitude. Or we may be celebrating accomplishments we never expected. There may also be grief, missing those no longer with us, even as we give the nod to achievements and milestones, triumphs and joy.
I admit I spend a good deal of time examining my own motivations and actions, constantly evaluating.
Will you be using this time, like me, to gain self-awareness – knowledge of who you are, what you are, how well you’ve weathered storms, and what you’ve learned?
Wins
If you’re scoring victories and defeats, what do you consider a win?
- New additions to the family?
- Love? Marriage?
- Education? Achieving personal goals?
- Money? Assets?
- Your career?
- Your family? Your health?
How do you assign priorities to your wins? Are there extra points when you turn a loss into a win? Do the assessments of others factor into your score?
Losses
And on the liability side of your balance sheet, what would you include? Are losses more complex than wins?
- Death of a loved one?
- Relationships that end? Divorce?
- Loss of income, savings, retirement?
- Illness or injury?
- Unemployment?
- Personal and professional stalemates?
Where do lost dreams fit? What about beliefs that have been so tarnished you don’t think you can polish them up again?
Some of us fight to the bitter end, whatever the competition or battle. Others concede the game when loss seems inevitable. Which sort of person are you? Do you believe that as long as there’s still time on the clock, catching up is possible, no matter how many points down you may be?
My scorecard
Like many of us, I remember welcoming January 1, 2000. I had a husband I loved, two young children, and a well-established career. I had excelled in my field for 20 years, using my experience to negotiate a position working from a home office. It was a rarity then, and 10 years later, sadly, that remains true. I was a wife, a full time mother, a full time employee, a homemaker, a daughter, a sister, a friend. And I was a writer, though I didn’t own it, generally writing purely for business, and for myself – in the middle of the night.
My 10 years in review include losses that many have had to deal with, though perhaps not in quite so concentrated a period of time. They include deaths in the family, loss of my marriage, loss of home, multiple layoffs, frightening financial burdens, loss of friendships, lost opportunities, and lost physical capabilities.
But on the plus side stand my sons, and they’re spectacular.
The fact that I’m still here to see them growing into good men? This fills me with pride and purpose.
Surprises
There have been other surprises – love – which eventually transformed into friendship, a bit of travel for freelance assignments, and I no longer write in the shadows. I’ve been published in periodicals I respect, have improved my skills, and I continue to learn.
And then there are angels – compassionate souls who have appeared seemingly from nowhere, sharing their time, their knowledge, and their caring, which they’ve extended to my sons, and to me.
Netting out the decade
So while the losses outnumber the wins, certainly on paper, perhaps scoring the decade is all about priorities. Those two remarkable young men I’ve been privileged to raise certainly fill out the “win” column – hands down. My sons have taught me strength; my angels have taught me grace.
Will I focus on the wins? You bet. I’m entering the new decade somewhat beleaguered and with a touch of cynicism, plenty of humility, and still – optimism. I will continue to insist: new year, new start. And I intend to greet 2010 with a glass of bubbly, my boys nearby, as many teenagers as care to gather here, and a bright smile.
- How would you score your decade?
- Does looking back help you look forward?
- Will you be raising a glass on New Year’s Eve?
I’m glad we’re both focusing on the wins 🙂 The decade, for me, has been just about my whole adult life. I got married 12 years ago, but I sorta count that in the decade anyway. Both kids came in this decade. I found my biological Mother and found out about my biological dad (car crash). I also got rich — for a while. So the decade went really well for me, right up until last year when things started to fall apart. Fortunately though the only thing to go was my wealth. I’m currently living in crappy little digs and barely getting rent paid. But, I guess, when I tally it all up I’ve still got the rest. Like you say, the kids are the most important part of my life. They teach me how to be good. Without them I’d be lost now. Thanks for making me think today, Wolf! 🙂
It’s been an interesting decade for me. Lots of personal growth. I divorced 10 years ago, so it’s been all me these past ten years. I’m definitely ready for change!
Great read – I too, am looking back at the decade. I call it my full circle decade as I met, dated, married and divorced my ex (Dec 6 wuold have been our ten year anniversary since we met). 2010 and the next decade are going to be fantastic, I can hardly wait 🙂
This past decade has been full of wonderful things for me. I am happy for the challenges it has presented – mostly in the personal relationship area and the “job/career” area – but even happier for the “wins” that I have had. I would score the decade a definite plus!
Looking back helps us all learn from where we have come. In that sense, it also helps us go forward.
And, yes, I will raise a glass or two tomorrow night. I am still up in the air as to where I will raise this glass but it will most likely be a Spanish cava that I love!
mmmm… that sounds good!
This is very beautiful – and as far as I can tell from your writing, there is a remarkable amount of both strength and grace in both YOU and in your life. May the next decade bring more ease and more joy.
xo
I think I’ll have to write a post to contemplate these past 10 years.
Happy New Year to you and yours! Glad we found each other this year.
BLW:
I think I veered too close to realism this past ten years. But my kids are so full of hope and expectation they are helping me to expect more, too.
I am very happy about the gutsy persistence and optimism in your post and I’m wishing many wonderful things for you, good work, good health and good lovin’, this decade.
Reading this post, I had the same reaction as April: so many great questions to spark a post of my own. But for now, I will say that I am cognizant of the myriad ways in which I have come out of this decade with a net gain. I lost my grandmother, but cemented my relationship with Husband in marriage, met my two sons, and created a life for myself only the contours of which were visible ten years ago.
I look forward to spending more time with this post over the next few days, doing some more thinking about these provocative questions.
I love to read your writings you say exactly what I am thinking but cant seem to put out in readable type.
It has been a rough decade for me, many challenges and emotional swinging.
But I feel great about this next decade, this next chapter. I think that good things are bound to happen for so many who have been facing an uphill battle.
Happy New Year
My last ten years are, predictably, quite different from your readers. In 1999, I was 12 years of age. I was full of vigor, assured in my goals of attending college and eventually becoming a mother, and had a great group of friends. Now, 10 years later, I have accomplished my goal of graduating from college, marrying, and starting a family. I have had rough times. I have had good times. I am happy. I know the next 10 years will be full of more joys, increasing responsibility, and pure enjoyment as I watch my beautiful children grow.
Wonderful post!
In the last ten years I divorced, gave birth to my fourth, re-married, attempted to blend a family of astronomical proportions (there were 13 of us, plus dogs and birds), failed at that, got divorced, purchased my own home on my own with my own income (no thanks to the ex who did his best to destroy it), took pay decrease after pay decrease, and encountered blown car engines, house repairs and illness, and buried my mother, all the while…
….getting my children and I into a much safer more respectful place, keeping a roof over my head and avoiding foreclosure or bankruptcy, keeping my job, keeping food on the table and clothing on my kids, and graduating one, and with the help of the first ex, sending her off to a fine private school. I’ve managed to make a complete mess of my romantic life on more than one occasion, but the kids are doing well, I have my health and we are, above all, safe and free from abuse. The decade wasn’t my favorite, but it wasn’t all bad either and I remain, deeply, totally, unmitigatingly….GRATEFUL…for the many, many gifts of love and caring, respect, health and life I’ve received through friends, family and those un-met angels.
Thanks for posting this.