Dear Last Decade:

You were fantastic to me and good to me and bad to me and worse to a lot of people who aren’t me and I lost people I loved in you, both to death and to foolishness, and I was foolish in you and made mistakes in you and started writing poetry in you and mostly stopped writing poetry in you (the same with fiction, though the music is still going, phew) and did things I took forever to get to grips with in you (well, we were both young and foolish then) and failed at being a good friend in you and hopefully sometimes succeeded at being a good friend in you and broke less bones in you than in the decade before and I now have a lot more degrees and licenses and stuff than I did before you, more regrets, too, I speak more languages, have been to a lot more countries, lived in more places, and generally acquired quite a lot more physical/mental/emotional scars, with (hopefully) the growth that comes along with them. But haven’t we all? I also think I am sillier now and more at ease in my skin now and hopefully a better and wiser person now than I was in 1999, so, you know, you were fun (except when you weren’t) and here’s to a couple more of you for us all!

Happy 2010 and happy 10s, everyone!!!