Party Like it's 2-0-0-9!

Each year we count down to midnight at the top of our lungs and watch a giant crystal ball glide down a pole in NYC. (It never really "drops!") This year we are not only ringing in a new year but a whole new decade as well. The 2000's was the first decade that I have stayed up to watch every midnight ball drop. To be honest, this past decade has come with a lot of firsts.

The world today would be nearly unrecognizable to my 11-year-old self back when I survived Y2K ten years ago. Just for frame of reference, here is what I looked like back in 2000. Fortunately, I'm almost unrecognizable too! (I hope)

Back in 2000, Beyonce was still a part of Destiny's Child and Harry Potter was only a book series. The presidential election of 2000 was the first I could really understand, and there's no doubt that first memory has shaped my opinion of politics since. And where to begin about technology? The internet required seven long minutes of dial-up just to get on, and once you did AIM was your only form of communicating outside the telephone. Heck, pictures were still developed with film and phones were still attached to walls.

Lot's of things about our world are different than they were ten years ago. But let's think about for a minute how much we have changed over the decade. Other than the obvious appearances, (thankfully!) the 2000's have been in many ways the defining decade of our generation. We are known as the "millenials'- those born roughly between 1980 and 1995 and came of age at the turn of the century.

Like the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers, many of the events from 2000's will define our lives. We are supposed to be the generation of "all winner" t-ball teams with instant gratification attitudes. We also supposedly reject the polarities in society of the 1960's and prefer "consensus building" as exemplified through our overwhelming support for President Obama's campaign.

But beyond all that, this decade has been all about our firsts. First kisses. First dances. Proms and graduations. We were teenagers that learned to drive, learned to piss off our parents, and learned how to start living on our own. For us Millenials, the 2000's are the defining time for love, loss, and growing up.

So now back to the future... we are now entering the 2010's. What does this mean to our generation as we leave behind our teenage years and enter... dun dun dunnn ADULTHOOD. That's what 2010+ will mean to me. This next decade is when we take what has defined us in the 2000's and put it to action. Our generation will fully enter the workforce and create our own footprint on the world. (Hopefully it's a greener one!)

Scared? yes. Excited? that too! As you think about the new year and reflect back on 2009, give a little gratitude to the decade that has defined our lives in so many ways.

So I will be closing my 2000 decade in style in the snowy White Mountains of NH right before I start my new decade in one of the most powerful cities in the world. My next post will probably come from DC after move-in! What a great way to start my new, grown-up decade!