The End of the 2000s

Today is the last day of 2009, and the first decade of the 21st century. Ten years ago, I was 14 years old and for some reason I was very apprehensive about the new millennium, and not because of that Y2K bullshit either. I didn't build a lair underground equipped with shotguns and canned beef and bottled water or anything. I just remember I was at the store and on my way home just looking at the sunset and thinking "things are not gonna be the same after this..." It was a very real feeling that was deeper beyond the rather empty words of what I was thinking. It was sad to say goodbye to the 1990s.

The clock struck midnight ushering the year 2000, and alas the world did not blow up!!! (Though I knew that wasn't going to happen) The first day of the new millennium was just like any other. Yet I couldn't shake this feeling of nervousness towards the year 2000 and what was to come. It could have been the aspect that my teenage years were in full swing by this point, where the crap my older sister spoke of, such as problems with the opposite sex, friends, alienation, REALLY fucked with you on a more severe level than when they first crept up on you when you're a little younger. It could have been the looming events that would unfold over the next couple of years; in the year 2000, we would have a new president, a terrorist plot was being planned against our country, and while the economy was pretty good during that time, it was all a lie that would blow up in everyone's face in a matter of years (except no one really knew it at that time). Of course, I didn't think in those terms, me being 14 and relatively ignorant of current world events, but I still had intuition I guess.

Without this being an overwrought entry reviewing all the shit that happened year by year, we had to deal with a lot this decade.... not all of it bad. The major elephants in the room being 9/11, the Bush presidency, and the economic collapse around 2008. I'm not going to write what pretty much everyone else has written about those events already. I will say that my sister had overslept the morning of 9/11 and was supposed to be at the Twin Towers when they were attacked by hijacked airplanes. And every day that passes, I'm really really thankful that she wasn't killed or injured or even THERE at Ground Zero. I only wish that countless other families who did lose someone in that attack were blessed the same way I was. Or that BOTH the Clinton and the Bush administrations had paid more attention to Bin Laden's threats and had taken action to perhaps thwart the plot against the US. The lives that could have been saved that day... (and the wars that came after it, most certainly)

As a society, we have been given some very valuable lessons on how to live this past decade. Whether people choose to take them to heart is up to every individual, but nonetheless there were lessons to be learned. After 9/11, the lesson (and this is all my personal take on everything, btw) should have been caring for your fellow man, and not taking every second for granted and we could lose something very dear to us at any time. Who knew that on a beautiful sunny day such as that fateful Tuesday that the world would be changed forever? Sadly, however, a lot of people didn't share that sentiment. A new era of jingoism and xenophobia was ushered in, as well as an era of war in the same vein as that of Vietnam. Our enemy was a word (terrorism), and war on a word is never good.

Yet we lost sight of our #1 enemy, which was Osama Bin Laden, and the genius in the White House decided that Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks, even if it's a fact that he didn't, and Iraq was holding nuclear weapon, even if both Iraq and the weapons inspectors said that there were none. Our country, already divided as it was, became even more divided, and George W. Bush certainly didn't help that when he said that "you were either with us or against us." Those who opposed the war were basically told that their opposition to the war, either for reasons regarding pacifism or seeing through the bullshit they were being fed, meant that they might as well be siding with Saddam Hussein and Communism, even if the 2 didn't have anything to do with each other. Those who supported the war were seen as ignorant redneck warmongers, and I know that that wasn't 100% true either, even if having stickers that said "GOD BLESS AMERICA" or "THESE COLORS DON'T RUN" on the back of a Tahoe didn't help their case any, not that I'm taking sides.

Fast forward to the present day. We now have a new president, who ran on a campaign that was nothing short of electrifying. However, his first year of his administration was overall pretty dismal, though that's not entirely his fault either. He inherited two wars and an economy that's in the crapper, never mind a scared and paranoid public and many right-wingers vowing to stop at nothing to bring him down (even if right-wingers had been driving this nation to the ground for decades now, and left-wingers had their part in it too). For me, the jury is still out with President Obama (I have a rule of thumb; one year before I start criticizing a president... however since things are so bad and so beyond his control, I'm giving him a bit longer), but I ultimately believe that after all of this, we'll emerge as a better nation.

On a personal level, this decade was one big lesson. I learned a lot, regardless of many false starts and fuck-ups on my part, and I will take the wisdom and lessons of this decade to make the upcoming one way better than this one. Trite, yes I know, but ultimately true (see above for the feelings deeper than empty words). I've come to realize that I'm not a bad person, I'm not stupid, how much money you have is not everything (even if it helps make life easier and more enjoyable), and I have many things to conquer and many roads to travel. And if no one else likes it, then fuck them.

I'm not one for New Years' resolutions. I also don't think that bringing in a new decade will smooth everything over (the unrealistic clean slate bullshit); there's still work to be done. Yet, what better opportunity than to start off a new decade the right way?