So, for the fourth time in my life, I find myself at the turning of a new decade, a completely arbitrary but seemingly meaningful event. I remember 1979 giving way to 1980 (ooohhh), 1989 moving on to 1990 (ahhhhhh), 1999 being replaced ever so gently by 2000 (millennial!!!), and now 2009 giving way to 2010 (meh).
“Meh” definitely sums this one up for me. The end of the 70′s and 80′s and 90′s each had some sort of feeling of gravitas, of a decade shift. This one feels like a calendar page flipped. In fact, until it was pointed out to me, I didn’t even realize that is was a decade change over.
I think this is because of how the numbers are connected in my head. When counting, the first 12 numbers pretty much seem to be part of a group for me. I know that 10 is a clear division but for some reason the real division seems to be when the number switch into a “teen” naming pattern. There is 1-12, then 13-19, then 20, 30, 40, 50, etc. 2013 will be like, hey now we’re in the teens! This means something! 2010 somehow feels less like a new decade to me.
Whatever. Calendars are arbitrary, feelings about calendars more so. What matters is that it is indeed a new decade and with it comes an opportunity to reflect on the decade that has gone past, and really all the decade shifts I have experienced. So, without further ado, that’s what I shall do.
Decade changeover numero uno: 1979/1980
This one happened when I was 6 but believe it or not, I remember it occurring. I can’t be certain what I would have said on that occasion if asked, but I think I can speculate that if asked for the highlights of the previous decade for me I would have said:
- Being born
- Learning to read
- Listening to Beatles records on our record player
There were plenty of other things that happened, but those were the biggies.
Decade changeover numero dos: 1989/1990
This time I was 16. Woo doggies. High school student. Played guitar. Wore a black trench coat and Chucks and Ralph Lauren Polo glasses. Very pale. Listened to a lot of Pink Floyd.
Had I taken the time to look back over the previous 10 years at that point, the biggest high points would likely have been:
- Discovering computers
- Deciding to be a writer
- Learning to play guitar
- Getting baptized as a Jehovah’s Witness
- Growing into a young adult
- Recording a bunch of albums with my band “The Lavone” and starting Nuclear Gopher
Those were fun times, fun times.
Decade changeover noooomber threeeeee: 1999/2000
Boy did I ever have a busy decade. This one ended with me at 26. I was starting to lose my hair. I had a definite list of events that mattered in that decade:
- Graduating high school
- Getting married
- Going to computer vo-tech and becoming a programmer
- Becoming a father
- Getting divorced
- Parents getting divorced
- Putting Nuclear Gopher on the the new-fangled Internet-thingie in 1994
- Becoming a published author (six times!)
The 1990′s were busy, busy, busy. All that work of turning from an awkward teenage geek artist into an awkward divorced 20-something geek artist programmer dad and internet record label entrepreneur. Busy little bee.
Decade changeover IV: A New Hope: 2009/2010
Summing up the last decade is a much bigger job than I really feel like tackling in depth. This time I’m, wait for it, 36. If you, the beloved reader, wish to go into depth about my life over the past decade, you can bore yourself to tears by reading the postings here at RyanSutter.net which span March 2001 – The Present. That’s about 90% of the last decade. The short version is:
- Getting married again
- Getting divorced again
- Leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses
- Experiencing the death of my brother Rhett
- Getting remarried for the third and final time
- Ending Nuclear Gopher, starting solo recording music pursuits
- Getting back to being a writer
- Blogging the hell out of the decade
And that just about sums it all up.
So what of this new decade? What wonders shall it present? What terrors shall I behold? I anxiously await the answers to these questions and more. See ya in another ten years, eh?
