It's a new dawn, a new day, a new decade......2010

Just two days ago, we celebrated the beginning of a new year. It suddenly dawned on me today, that, not only is it a new year, it is a new DECADE. Ten whole years have passed since we welcomed in the millennium with excitement and apprehension. Were computers everywhere going to crash according to Y2K? Was an asteroid going to land on the earth? It's been quite a decade. Do you remember the New Year of the new millennium? Surprisingly enough, though I couldn't tell you for certain sure what I had for lunch yesterday, I remember ringing in the year 2000 clearly. It was our first new year in the state we had just moved to, approximately 600 miles from where the rest of our family were celebrating. We were living in a tiny apartment and I was 14 years old.



It seems like a long time ago now, but these ten years have gone by in a blur. And a lot of those years were hard. There were good times and bad times. There were lots of milestones along the way. I turned sixteen, got my driver's license, graduated high school, won awards for my artwork, and got my first job. I went to professional tennis tournaments, played the piano in competitions, entered art shows, and taught myself to quilt. I read more books in those ten years than I probably ever will again for the rest of my life. We brought Princess home in 2001. My baby cousin Kati was born in 2002. I saw several of my friends and cousins get married and start families. We lost my Grandma in 2004 and Grandpa had open heart surgery and became ill for months that same year. The whole country will remember September 11, 2001 and the war that has followed.

Last year was a very hard year. I've lost both my Mama and my Grandpa. And the year ahead will not be like any of the years before because my Mama won't be here. But I am hoping that though this year and this decade are coming on the heels of the hardest year of my life, that somehow, though different, they will be good. I hope to finish school this year and get a better job. I hope that I will accomplish some of the things I have always wanted to. I hope that I will find time again to do the things I enjoy and just remember to enjoy life in general.

I trust that God has a plan for me. He has been with me through all the difficult days. Even the days when I've had meltdowns and temper tantrums, I know He never forsook me. And His plan is better for me than any plans I make for myself.

Right now a new year and a new decade is before us. I have a wishlist of things I hope for, a list of goals that I want to accomplish, and a list of random things I'd just like to do. Well, they aren't physical lists, but I have the lists in my head. I hope that ten years from now, I will be able to look back and see that some of those things really have happened. Or maybe I will be able to look back on better, happier days than I even imagined for myself. I don't know. I do know that this is the beginning of a new decade, a new stage of my life. I hope this will be a good year. And I wish everyone a happy new year!

When I left Queen's my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight
road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend
in it. I don't know what lies around the bend, but I'm going to believe that the
best does. ~ Anne of Green Gables