This decade is coming to an end. Everyone is talking about it. And I was driving the other day and I thought to myself, “Wow, a whole decade. It’s been a decade since I was a ten-year-old little kid in 4th grade celebrating y2k”.
Your math isn’t wrong. Mine is.
For some reason, my brain thinks this decade started in 2000. But, no. It started in 2010. That’s the year I turned 20 years old. It has been A DECADE since I turned twenty. It feels like I blinked. I swear it was just yesterday that I was wearing some shirt as a dress, covering myself in body glitter, and pounding vodka sprites out of a water bottle. How as an entire decade passed since then?
This got me to thinking about what all has happened in this past decade. Ten entire years of life and growth and change and lessons and insights. Surely I have more to show for myself than some grainy Facebook photos and a forever love affair with Ke$ha.
So I got out a pen and paper and numbered it 1-10.
Here are the ten things from the past decade that I am most proud of. I did this because it is too easy to forget. We’re all so caught up looking forward at everything we have left to accomplish, we hardly ever stop and turn around to see how much we’ve already done. Here’s my list. What’s on yours?
- Traveled…everywhere.
- Graduated college summa cum laude.
- Lived alone in my perfect little beach apartment.
- Published my very first article in the Miami Herald.
- Published my first book!
- Became a stepmom.
- Adopted a dog.
- Got married.
- Gave birth to my daughter.
- Launched a podcast!!!
Ten years ago, when I was sitting in my college apartment writing out my “ten-year plan”, dreaming up goals I wanted to accomplish over the next decade, I wouldn’t have even been able to conceive of half of these things. My life has taken so many surprising and brilliant turns that I would have never planned for. I’m so grateful for the past decade. I have loved and lost and tried and failed and scored and missed.
I have felt enormous pain and the most ecstatic joy.
It’s been a decade of learning. It’s been a decade of unpacking. Its been a decade of LIVING. And I can’t even imagine what this next decade has in store.
2020, we ready.
Now please enjoy this collection of grainy Facebook photos 🙂
