BIDDING FAREWELL TO A DECADE

It’s almost the new year and most of us are excited to finally be done not only with this year itself, but also with this decade.

I know for a fact that I am not only excited to see the year 2020 but to see what this “new time and age” has to bring to us as a society and to myself as a person.

But there is one single question that keeps popping up on a constant loop: “What do you feel you will miss about your ‘childhood years’ and what would you change if you had the chance to?”

If you think about it, that question is truly hard to answer for a lot of individuals, myself included, because how do you take that list that’s a mile long and narrow it down into something not only reasonable in length but also will not bore those listening to tears?

I mean, for a lot of us, this was the decade we called home for so long. This is the decade that has and will make history for those who will follow after us. Beyond that, so much has happened in the last 19 years – the 2000s – memories that will make us laugh, make us cry or anger us, some that will leave us sighing wistfully thinking of what we could have changed or done better knowing what’s done is done, as the saying goes.

Remember the year 2001? For many of us, that will be a memory we lived through and for the generations after us it will simply be a piece of information that gets passed down to them either through us, personally, or through books (most likely the internet, let’s be honest!).

I was asked recently by an old friend what I would miss most about the last 19 years and my first thought, instantly, was the music! I love music and I feel this decade and even the time before now was the golden age for it all.

My second thought was my childhood, because it was an age of freedom and innocence before adulthood rounded the corner. As children we all could just relax and enjoy the breeze before we had to grow up and put the toys away and replace them with relationships, school, jobs, and everything one gets saddled with when they leave their childhood behind.

On Instagram there was a post that caught my eye. Someone had asked, “If you had one chance to go back in time when that clock hits midnight on New Year’s Eve and change anything, what would you change, and why?”

I thought about it and said, Yes, I would change so much – do things better, or put more effort into things I feel I should have. Maybe I would have turned out a different person but, I wouldn’t have any regrets like I do now. I would go back and time and tell young me that it’s okay to be different and it’s okay to be yourself because the world is so full of “normal” that being abnormal would be a shining light in a dark tunnel, and everything that will happen to you – the good and the bad – will only make you stronger and prepare you for the world. One day you will look back and you won’t regret a thing.

So, my questions to you the reader are simple:

If you could change anything anything at all in your life, even something so small as to giving that one person a smile, or something large, like facing your biggest fear, what would it be?

And, lastly, if you feel you will miss anything at all about the last 19 or so years, what would it be?