The year is drawing to a close and, with it, my childhood.
I was born in 2000, and the 2010s were the time that I really came into my own. I started high school, I graduated high school, and now I’m halfway into my university degree.
As the year ends, I’ve been reflecting on some of the milestones this decade has brought me.
I feel like the first 10 years of life aren’t always remembered. I personally can’t remember much from before I was two, and everything before I was eight was slightly blurred over time.
But, really, I think it’s the second decade of life that really creates a person.
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In the past 10 years, I’ve actually earned a diploma. I’ve learned how to function (independently) in society. I’ve had my first job, and several subsequently to that. I’ve learned about my world, and I’ve learned about myself.
The past 10 years are literally half of my life, and 2020 sees me end my teenage years, as I officially (in my mind at least) become a young adult.
I voted for the first time. I don’t have a driver’s license, but I’m legally allowed to practice driving a car, so I think that I’ve made progress. I’ve made friends, moved across the country, made more friends. My life, so far, has been pretty great.
I am saying goodbye to certain things this decade has held. I’m saying goodbye to the decade where I think I’ve finished off my childhood, and that honestly is a little sad.
I had a wonderful childhood.
But I think leaving the technical realm of teenager, where you’re still sort of a kid, but not all the way, and transitioning into my 20s, that’s the real test I’m going to face in the upcoming decade.
Numbers are strange to me; they always have been.
There’s nothing about numbers that comes naturally to me, but I tend, like most people, to organize them in certain ways.
I like to count in twos, fives, and 10s. But to say I’ve been alive for two whole decades? I’m terribly excited.
Think of all the things I’ve lived to see: Canada turned 150. That’s a real coming of age story, and it’s one that I feel relates to mine. I watched as Canada celebrated having seen over 15 decades, and now I can say I’ve seen two.
I don’t remember all of it, but I have learned so much. I’ve literally grown up into a whole entire person, and I feel like that should be worth something. I’m proud that I’m going to see the second decade of the millennium and that I get to turn 20 with the 2000s.
It hasn’t been the easiest decade. There have been a lot of things that I would go back and change, if time machines are ever invented.
However, I like to focus on the positive as I finish articles, and I’d like to focus on the positive as I finish this decade – so I will end by saying, I have great hope for the ’20s.
Let’s get Gatsby.
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