Ten years after
The new year and new decade are just three days away. The idea of 2020 seems so bizarre, given how far away that once seemed, say, when I was a teenager ... but here it is, three days away. The enormity of this milestone hasn't quite sunk in yet.
I was blogging 10 years ago, when the last decade turned, and I wrote about the impending moment then. I declared, "This decade that is coming to a close was officially a blur."
Wow, I didn't have a clue what a blur really was ...
Compared with the past decade, the 2000s were relatively slow, because the 2010s were a blink of an eye.
Yet, for my sons, the decade has probably felt like forever. Ten years ago, Michael was in kindergarten and Ben was in preschool. Time and its perception hasn't evolved for them yet. It's probably starting to for them as teenagers, but the time concept still varies widely to what adults -- especially parents with growing kids -- experience.
I could pinpoint a few things that sped the decade up. I started freelancing for my current employer in 2013, quit the newspaper in 2014, was hired full-time in 2015, and didn't really settle into the job until 2016. I thought that after leaving newspapers and, specifically, sports journalism that without the ebb and flow of seasons, my perception of time would slow down, but it hasn't. I'm coming up on my five-year anniversary with SmartBug but it barely feels like any time has passed at all.
Then there's the political climate -- three years of holding your nose and hoping it ends quickly. Although it hasn't been as bad as many people feared (though it's still been pretty bad ...), there has been a "let's get it over with" attitude that hasn't helped prevent time from flying by.
But ultimately, parenting has sped time up faster than anything. You always hear about how fast it goes, but no one tells you how fast that really is. That's something parents learn for themselves -- and we learn it the hard way, in seeing our children grow up so quickly and realizing that there's not much time with them left.
So I want to know, what happens around 2025 when both boys are out of high school and building their own lives? What will I be writing on the verge of 2030?
I'm not in a hurry to find out.
I was blogging 10 years ago, when the last decade turned, and I wrote about the impending moment then. I declared, "This decade that is coming to a close was officially a blur."
Wow, I didn't have a clue what a blur really was ...
Compared with the past decade, the 2000s were relatively slow, because the 2010s were a blink of an eye.
Yet, for my sons, the decade has probably felt like forever. Ten years ago, Michael was in kindergarten and Ben was in preschool. Time and its perception hasn't evolved for them yet. It's probably starting to for them as teenagers, but the time concept still varies widely to what adults -- especially parents with growing kids -- experience.
I could pinpoint a few things that sped the decade up. I started freelancing for my current employer in 2013, quit the newspaper in 2014, was hired full-time in 2015, and didn't really settle into the job until 2016. I thought that after leaving newspapers and, specifically, sports journalism that without the ebb and flow of seasons, my perception of time would slow down, but it hasn't. I'm coming up on my five-year anniversary with SmartBug but it barely feels like any time has passed at all.
Then there's the political climate -- three years of holding your nose and hoping it ends quickly. Although it hasn't been as bad as many people feared (though it's still been pretty bad ...), there has been a "let's get it over with" attitude that hasn't helped prevent time from flying by.
But ultimately, parenting has sped time up faster than anything. You always hear about how fast it goes, but no one tells you how fast that really is. That's something parents learn for themselves -- and we learn it the hard way, in seeing our children grow up so quickly and realizing that there's not much time with them left.
So I want to know, what happens around 2025 when both boys are out of high school and building their own lives? What will I be writing on the verge of 2030?
I'm not in a hurry to find out.
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