Hopes for a New Decade

Alas, it is time for another year-end post. But it's not just the end of a year, it's also the end of a decade. Yikes!

There is now less than half an hour left in the 2000s. I'm writing this on my laptop in the family living room with my mother falling asleep in the chair next to me and my brother upstairs microwaving the New Year's Eve Nachos. Dad's upstairs and will come down later.

New Year's Eve Nachos are a relatively new tradition in the Parenti household, actually, in that they've only existed since 24 December. You see, on 20 December, Mom came back from the store with chips and salsa (among other things, of course). By 22 December, David was insisting that we eat said chips and salsa. I suggested we wait until a special occasion — Christmas Eve, in particular. Christmas Eve Chips-'n'-Salsa would become a new tradition. Okay, fine.

Christmas Eve came and we were eating dinner and Mom asked if we were "still doing the New Year's Eve Nachos," completely getting both the holiday and the food item wrong (although to be fair, she was kind of close). We corrected her, but then decided that New Year's Eve Nachos would also be a good tradition to start.

So we did.

Anyway, I still can't quite grasp the fact that we're on the cusp of 2010. It's just always seemed so far away, and yet... here it is! Heck, it's already here in so many parts of the world.

Earlier today, I was doing some year-end data management and typing 2010 repeatedly into some spreadsheets. I mentioned to my brother how much I like typing 2010 as compared to recent years like 2009, 2005, or even 1996.

You see, for as long as I've been able to type, every year has had a repeated digit in it (and in the cases of 1999 and 2000, a triply repeated digit). In order to type a doubled digit, one has to release the appropriate key before depressing it again. It slows you down. However, for 2010, I don't have to fully let go of the zero before I hit the one. It's wonderful! (Or at least, it will be until 2011 puts a kink in the works for a year.)

But not only will the new year bring the end of the "double-ohs," it will also bring new beginnings for my life.

As 2005 turned into 2006, I wrote that I was excited for new "firsts" entering my life in the coming year. That sentiment is certainly repeated again now, four years later, as I prepare to finish my college career in just a few short months. I still have no idea what I'll be doing come May, but I'm excited to live 2010 to the fullest.

That will certainly mean some big changes for me in the coming year, some personal and some not. I may not know what 2010 or the ensuing decade will bring, but I'm ever hopeful that things will turn out for the best.