I am writing this post on New Year’s Day 2020. My Twitter feed is afire with people sharing their reviews of the past year or decade. The decade review is especially popular because we just flipped to 2020, which many feel is the beginning of a new decade while others argue that it is the last year of the decade and the new decade won’t actually start until 2021.
Yet others point out that time is a social construct, so you decide whether 2020 is the beginning or end of the decade. I’m going to go with beginning because why not? Other than the astronomical reasons for our sense of time (the Earth’s rotation, the circling of the Earth around the sun, the phases of the moon), most of the numerical stuff, like BCE and CE, the number of days in a week, weeks in a month, months in a year, and even the day that marks the beginning of the year, is arbitrary.
This looking back at recent history, whether at the past year or the past decade, is important in terms of personal development. You can see how far you’ve come in achieving your goals or marvel at what you have managed to survive. These look-backs can provide you with inspiration to change your life’s trajectory or help you realize how strong you are.
News sources also find the year-end reviews useful. While the older newspapers (think early 1900s in Minnesota) don’t have these year-end reviews of larger community events, later ones do. They provide interesting content for wrapping up a year and new sources will often arrange events by month, sometimes even by day. This is a boon to researchers if they don’t know exactly when something major occurred within a year. Just turn to the year-end review and scan it to pinpoint the month or day without having to search the entire paper.
Naturally, reading other people’s decade-in-review lists on Twitter makes me want to compile my own. (Such a herd animal I am, but, as I’ve opted not to directly post my list as a tweet, I’m still a bit of a hermit in the tarot sense of the word. Just gonna do my thing in my own way.)
So, here goes …. This is what my decade, from 2010 to 2019, has included.
– Hubby and I launched all of our children into adulthood, with high school and college graduations and partnering up and starting their own jobs and households.
– Our extended family has expanded considerably.
– My dad and father-in-law died, both tremendously earth-shattering events for our family.
– We got a dog, even though I was pretty sure I wasn’t a dog person. And I was reasonably successful in training him.
– We lost all three of our cats, who had been with us since kittenhood and lived very long lives.
– Hubby and I started a business restoring mid-century modern furniture near the beginning of the decade and recently closed it.
– I became the executive director of the Morrison County Historical Society.
– I joined the board of the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, something I have wanted to do for ages. It’s a competitive process, so this was no guarantee.
– I developed a severe case of eczema and worked for years over the decade to get it under control.
– I started perimenopause and, as the decade closes, I think I’m almost to the end of it. (Yay!)
– I ran 8 different blogs, including starting The Pragmatic Historian.
– I wrote loads of articles and 5 monographs for work.
– I managed, with lots of help, to get mobile shelving installed in the archives at my museum, a project that has been in the works for decades.
– I did freelance writing.
– I made stuff.
– I filled 24 notebooks and 11 calendars. (For some reason, I had 2 calendars for 2014, and both are crammed full.)
– I got a Subaru Outback, a car I have wanted for a long, long time. (Thanks, Hubby, for insisting!)
– I discovered and have enjoyed the music of Devin Townsend and Muse. (Thanks, Hubby!)
– I learned a lot (including getting more familiar with tarot cards) and got to know myself better.
And, isn’t getting to know yourself better the whole purpose of these periodic reviews?
Over to you …. What were the major events of your last year or decade?
