Remember the End of the World that was Y2K?
Of course you do, because it didn't.
Not only did the world not end, but it kinda thrived. Sure, there were major problems. There are always major problems. There were also major triumphs.
As the curtain opens on a new set of ten years, I'd like to take a bit of time to look back on the good things that happened for me in the last decade.
- My three kids all graduated and grew into wonderful adults. Being the totally free spirits that they are, this was no small feat. I could not be happier with the people they have become. The job market may look foggy for the future, but we are all happy and healthy heading forward.
- My future grandson is a peanut roasting in the oven, and he will be the first of his generation amongst a huge throng of cousins. My daughter has had a wonderful pregnancy, working the whole time in her middle school classroom teaching literature. My son-in-law is an engineer who works on the booster rockets of the Space Shuttle. This decade was a good time for that program, but the next decade will see it gone. My son-in-law is already working on the Ares, so things look solid heading forward and upward.
- We moved into a condo by the water. It is Heaven on Earth, and even with the serious real estate crash the value has not dropped below the price we bought it for. I would not want to live anywhere else in the world.
- Nina and I both got published. I spent a glorious four years writing a weekly column about superheroes in a trading card game, and she did some drawings for Antero Alli's new book. His book is a self-published heart-seeking missile that will find a home in the expanded consciousness of trippy types everywhere regardless of economic conditions. My work on the trading card game is currently on pause due to much less money in the system being spent on trading card games, but the new Marvel Superstars product will change all that.
- We drive a 2007 Mini Cooper that we bought brand new. Best. Car. Ever.
- The 2003 Florida Marlins beat the New York Yankees in their own park to claim the 100th World Series championship. It is a ring that will never, ever, lose its shine.
- I had a one-man show of my paintings and computer art at the New Gallery of the University of Miami. It was one week after 9/11.
- I did everything I could to help elect Barack Obama as president. He may not be perfect, but I did not expect him to be. He is the most intelligent man I have ever seen in that office, and I still have extreme confidence that he is by far the best person for the job.
- Boomerang Channel brought Wacky Races back to television. The favorite show of my formative years is now around to share with my upcoming grandson.
- The strict standardized testing doctrine that is choking real education in America killed my old job two years ago, but the future is colorful and glorious for my new one. I landed quite nicely in a fabulous little elementary school two miles from my house. I was chosen Teacher of the Year this year, which feels really good since that makes two such awards from two different schools in the same decade. We are a "Ready School", which means we were chosen to be part of a wonderful educational reform program sponsored by the University of Florida. I am going to be part of a free Master's program that will allow me to help integrate the new system across the curriculum at our school. With only four years left until I am eligible to retire (at age 52) it seems my career is picking up more steam than ever. I can't see myself stopping for at least another decade.
Writing that rundown immediately makes me see that I could go on for at least twenty more. (Obviously I could also make a companion list of thirty terrible things that happened instead.) I live to celebrate the positive, and I have learned that life really is what you make it. It works for me.
I choose to appreciate the best things that happened to me over the last decade today, and share them with you. I hope your decade was good too, and that the next ten years are even better!