The 'Nought'-ies. Reflections on the 00's.

Not only is it the end of a new year, but the end of an entire decade so I thought I’d jump on the year/decade bandwagon and reflect about my life for a moment. (Forgive the self indulgence but really this website is called beckyances.net so you should expect it by now.)
So where was I during the big millennial New Years celebration 10 years ago today? I was at a small bar in Holland, surrounded by college friends in the middle of an 8-month round the world trip. Ryan spent a semester in Holland in 1996 and at the time they all swore to go back for New Years 2000 to celebrate together. Lucky for us we were already traveling so making a stop in Europe was pricey, but do-able (right after New Years we hopped a plane back to New Zealand where we lived for 3 more months.)
So now this year, as 2009 ends, I find myself counting down to another decade in yet another country. It’s funny when I think about it like that. It certainly makes me sound like a successful world traveling sophisticate, spending one New Years in Holland, another in China. But I certainly don’t feel that way.
So what did I do these past 10 years?
Well, as most of you know I moved to a small town in New Hampshire. I got married, I started a business, I wrote, I won some awards, I met amazing people and had some fantastic opportunities. On paper it sounds like a pretty good decade.
But I also got old. And tired. The 00’s encompass my first real decade as a ‘grown-up’ who was out of school and had to manage affairs on my own. I had to buy health insurance for the first time. I bought a car, found a new place to live and had to deal with things like broken heaters, being sick and finding someone to plow the snow in the winter.
While some of that was fun and invigorating, I feel like what I lost most over the past decade was my enthusiasm. I started off in 2000 feelin’ pretty good. I was in my mid-20’s fresh off world travels, newly married, discovered a new place to live and started a company which was all very exciting.
I felt anything was possible.
But then bills began piling up, responsibilities become overwhelming and being “master of your own destiny” turned into, “Why can’t someone just tell me what to do?”
I know the end of the Moo-Cow Fan Club Magazine had a lot to do with my growing discontentment, but for the past several years I began losing faith in the things I was doing and the person that I was. I felt that sparkle in my eye was gone; that my creative well was dried up. That at some point I had been thrown off the movers-and-shakers train and I was sitting on the side of the track, covered in dust, watching my destiny become a small speck off in the distance.
I know all that sounds melodramatic, but a lot of those feelings explains why Ryan and I are here living in China on the eve on 2010. Making this leap has restored a little bit of faith in myself. Back in 2000, there was nothing I couldn’t do. You know that movie The Secret? Well, that’s how my life used to be. Everything came so easy because I just knew it would. But somehow that belief ebbed away during the past decade and even just this past year I questioned if I could even get enough gumption to make moving to China possible.
I still question myself and my creativity but I think being here is a good balm. There is new energy, new routines and new opportunities that are exciting to me. There are also fewer responsibilities (such as paying bills) which give me an opportunity to relax and rest in those areas.
For 2010, and the next decade in general, I hope I can find my new pace. My pace in the early 2000’s wasn’t sustainable I now see. But my later pace, in the mid to late 2000’s was too slow. I wasn’t creating enough friction or energy to keep myself propelled. What I need to do is find a pace somewhere in the middle, where I can be creative without expecting too much. Where I can forgive myself for not being a world famous writer, but rather be someone who just writes, consistently and with a quality I am happy with.
I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to do that, or where to even start really. But it gives me something to think about.
Oh jeez, okay, now I’m all embarrassed. This blog entry didn’t go in the direction I was expecting at all. But I guess that’s what happens on the eve of a new phase, and a new date when you stop to reflect.
Well, I’m off to go watch a Chinese kid play in his band outside the university where I am a teacher. If you asked me New Years in 1999 what I would be doing in 10 years I might have guessed a lot of crazy things, but never anything like what I am actually doing tonight. I guess truth is stranger than fiction at times.