Good Riddance...

Greetings Dear Readers…I am back after a lengthy time-out. I hope life treated you well in my absence. Since my last entry, life has kept me busy (and aged me a year older back on November 10^th). My children have also increasingly been hogging the computer (and thus keeping me from getting online long enough to blog)…but hopefully I will not stay away so long again.

As these last few days of 2009 tick down, I like many others have become reflective. Mainly I was thinking about the past year and the ways my life has changed since the year before, but my son got me thinking on a larger scale. He is obsessed with the fact that we are about to change decades. (Considering this is the first time he has ever experienced this, I guess I can see the excitement.) So now I’m pondering the 00’s - or whatever you prefer to call this decade we are currently still in.

From my point of view, this has been a decade to forget! Not that there haven’t been good things to celebrate and cherish – like the birth of said son in 2000 – overall though, this has been a terrible decade.

Being a glass half-empty sort of gal, I think I’ll focus on the bad before the good…

During this past decade, I have watched my country steadily crumble under the leadership of the worst president in our history – George W. Bush. Economically we are in the crapper…my husband became one of the countless Americans who lost his/her job (of 12 years) – and then again only six months later when he was let go from the job that replaced the old one - during the recession. This of course changed our lives immensely – mainly for the worst. Although I don’t have the tax forms in front of me to prove it – we are probably worst off now than in 1999. We still only have one vehicle and do not own our own home.

I won’t even bother to pull out my soap box on the devastation that 8 years of Bush brought upon the civil rights of this country’s citizens. I am only grateful that because of this, my social conscious finally awoke and I became a much more aware, active participant of the human race…

If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make the change. (The Man in the Mirror ~ Michael Jackson)

Our lives were forever changed by the events on September 11^th, 2001. These events continue to affect our lives as we are still entangled in not one but two wars. I once felt justified that we went to war with Iraq after 9/11; but once the death toll of Americans killed in Iraq reached and surpassed that of those lost in 9/11 (and we still had not captured Bin Laden), I had to rethink my usual pro-military stance.

I’ve already mentioned the addition of my son to our family in this decade, but my family unit was also permanently altered when my parents divorced…leaving me essentially without my father in my life. Brian lost his father as well when he took his own life.

Medically it has not been a banner decade in my home: Being diagnosed with depression and anxiety disorder has altered the person I am today. Brian was diagnosed with vertigo. Brandon was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. Heck, even Meg had to get glasses.

I have lost more friends this decade than I would like to remember…

I have lost the gift of gaming in my life…

This has been a trying decade in my marriage to Brian – but we are still hanging in there.

Career-wise, I’ve been a temp at my current place of employment for almost a year now. Is this what I get for all the effort I put in working my way through college, while raising a family? I am nowhere near the job I thought I would have at this time in my life. Brian isn’t even working and is trying to re-create himself.

I’m sure there is more…of course there is more…but I think you get the bleak picture. We lost our sense of security; kicked out a planet (Pluto) from the solar system (As a Scorpio, Pluto was my ruling planet! Hey! Maybe that’s why I’m so adrift…I have no planet!) & almost lost New Orleans to the sea. This decade can’t be over fast enough if you ask me!

Tomorrow…I (attempt to) look on the bright side!