Goodbye to the 2010s

As we wind down the waning days of the 2010s, I have been reflecting on this last decade. At the end of 2009, I had just turned 30 and felt like I was living in limbo. Will and I had just accepted jobs at K-State, but were still living in Florida until summer. I had graduated with my PhD, but was essentially a post-doc for the awesome faculty at UCF while I waited for Will to finish his own degree. My kids were young, 5 and 1, and it felt like we had an unlimited amount of time left with them at home.

Now, as 2019 comes to a close, I have recently turned 40 and feel like my life seems the most solid and stable it ever has been. Will and I have both worked at K-State this past decade. I will probably continue to teach and conduct research and perform service in a similar capacity from now until retirement. My kids are older, 15 and 11, and the time left before they launch on their own adventures feels breathtakingly small.

In some ways, the 2010s were my most boring, inconsequential decade. I did not get married. I did not graduate with any degrees. I did not add any children to my family. I went to work, at the same job, with the same family, and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the next. We changed houses midway through this decade, but even that move, about a mile away from our previous house in Candlewood, seems tame.

But the 2010s were also the culmination of everything I worked so hard for in my young adult life. I have a fabulous job, a loving husband, awesome kids. My world expanded in the 2010s. I had always wished to travel more, but a lack of time and resources held me back. In this decade, our family trips and my work conference travel exploded. Instead of focusing only on work and my family, in this decade, I became involved in my church, kids' schools, and community in a manner I would have thought I had no time for in an earlier era. I worked so very hard in the 2000s and before. I still worked hard in the 2010s, but it was as if I was finally seeing the payoff of all this previous hard work.

The 2010s were nowhere near as glamorous as the constant changes of earlier decades. But it has brought my peace, happiness, friendships, connections, and contentment that are only possible in times of stability. And I hope the 2020s will be just as fulfilling.