See you later alligator, after while crocodile...welcome 2011!

It is very nearly the end of the first decade of the new millennium.  It has been a rocky start to say the least.  Attacks, epidemics, wars and recession…not necessarily the stuff dreams are made of, at least not pleasant ones.  But if you look past the dust and doom there are some bright lights shimmering through.  Granted I am struggling to name more than a few, but I know they are there somewhere.  Perhaps the simple fact that we all have survived a decade filled with so much stress and struggle to see the turn of the calendar is a shimmering light in its own right.  Who would have thought as we ushered in the millennium, partying like it was 1999 we would soon be in a war against terror and that the top news story at Thanksgiving would be the science fiction scenes of digital stripsearches at airports… did this remind anyone else of the old Arnold movie Total Recall?  You know, if it keeps crazies with bombs off of my flight, you can see whatever part of me you like!

Life for most of us Gen X’ers has gotten a whole lot more complicated, though at the same time more wonderful, with families, mortgages, car payments, student loans out of deferral and yes, even careers starting to blossom.  Wow, the 30 somethings are not nearly as comfortable as I thought they would be.  And I thought I lost a lot of sleep in my 20s!

Still, I am an optimist.  I know that soon the economy will right itself, despite all the government intervention.  I know that our troops will slowly start to return home to their families.  I know that soon I will be able to trade this damn minivan in for an SUV!  Things will improve.  They always do.  And those of us who toughed it out and learned by mistake over the past ten years will be better equipped to walk through the doors when they finally open.   

This year I am trying to recall the wins, the smiles, the little victories.  Today I am reflecting on the good that I have been able to accomplish and the lessons I have learned.  Right now I am thinking of the three young men under my roof who are all a product of the past decade, and I am praying that the next decade brings a safer and more hopeful future to them.  

Remember, the future, for the most part, our future, is what we make of it.

As Arthur O'Shaughnessy put it;     

We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;—
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

Happy New Year everyone, welcome 2011!