I keep forgetting that tomorrow marks the last day of the 2000s (although if you’re really pedantic about such things, one could argue that 31st December 2010 takes that title).
It all feels so different from this time ten years ago, when plenty of people got caught up in the euphoria of the “new millennium”. I remember it well: on 31st December 1999 I was living alone in my own flat, which I had bought barely a year previously, and was booked to play guitar in a band at my church’s New Year 1999/2000 party. (I believe I may have most of the concert recorded om a MiniDisc somewhere—one handy illustration of how technology alone has changed in ten years.)
Whilst I could hold forth on how I feel I’ve progressed musically in the past decade (in short: I probably haven’t improved my guitar skills massively, but have arguably matured them somewhat, and have also taken up a couple more instruments, mostly drums and mountain dulcimer), I mainly think of how much my life has changed on a personal level. On 1st January 2000, though I naturally had no idea, I was roughly ten months away from making contact with the woman I would go on to marry in 2002. Furthermore, I had even less concept of what it would be like to become a parent, which would change roughly halfway through the decade with the safe arrival of Naomi.
So, in many ways it has been ten years of gradual but considerable change, both “locally” and “internationally”. Others have written at great length about the latter, so there is little I could add—suffice it to say, the expectation with which I greeted the arrival of the Noughties has been replaced at its departure, by a kind of wearied apathy. It helps me to keep in mind that the Lord is in charge, as looking at the world, George Banks’ line in Mary Poppins (“life’s a looming battle to be faced and fought”) has rarely felt so apt, and I can barely imagine where we will all be on 31st December 2019 (if I could face the images my head produces).
But enough doom and gloom… I have my fair share of ideas for what I’d like to achieve in 2010, and harbour a feeling that one way or another, this will be a year of pretty momentous changes at the “micro” and “macro” levels (and sorry if that comes over needlessly cryptic, but there you go). Thanks for reading my various scribblings here—I’d like to wish you all a very Happy New Year for 2010, and I’ll see you around here (and my various other outlets) very soon.
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