I graduated from college in 1999. Since then, I’ve gotten a master’s degree, fought my way into my first professional job, decided to leave that and got several offers the second round of interviews, and am enjoying my second career-track job. I’ve lived in three states in three different regions. I bought crappy used furniture, and then real furniture (used and new) and basically built my adult life as it stands today. HUGE transitions but I love that at the end of all that, I am no more entrenched but am still building on what is now a more solid sense of who I am in relation to the world.

I think the Oughts have been a transition for me – my first child was born Dec. 18, 1999. I went back and forth with different mixes of parenthood and work, and finally settled into something that works for me and my family- for now, anyway.

Let’s see:

Graduated high school.
Started college.
Met my future husband.
Graduated college.
Began dating my future husband.
Worked in journalism for a year.
Quit that job.
Began working at my alma mater.
Married my husband.
Moved three times.
Started grad school.
Got a dog.

WHEW! Can’t wait to see what the ‘teens have in store!

I thought it was the “aughts.” I’ve looked it up and seen it spelled both ways all over the intertubes, but Wikipedia holds by “aughts.”

Back to the question: I got a master’s degree, converted to Judaism (it was a good decade for it), got married, realized I was married to an emotional abuser, got divorced (no small thing, there), started rebuilding my life. I feel like a totally different person than I was in 2000.

This was a huge decade of transition for me. I was fifteen going sixteen when 2000 began. In the past decade, I:

- learned to drive
- kissed a boy for the first time
- fell in love (different boy!) for the first time
- graduated high school
- graduated college
- moved 700 miles away from my family without a job or a place to live past 3 months
- got my first job (and left my first job)
- left this time zone
- fell in love for the second time (still there…)

(…And of course, instead of Oughts and Dids, there were oh so many Shouldn’ts. But those are important too!)

They were utter turmoil for me.

In 1999, I was a junior in college. My dad was advanced in his career and my parents were living in their dream home. My mother had just opened a small chocolate store.

I graduated college right when the dotcom bubble burst and took my dad’s job with it.

I got my first job and put off living with friends to help out at home.

My parents tried for eons and then finally lost the house.

We moved to a condo and I applied to grad. school.

My mother’s small chocolate shop grew to a small factory.

I left my first job and entered grad. school. Finally moved out because there was no way to help on a small grad. school stipend and commuting wasn’t feasible.

Graduated grad school with a Master’s.

Watched parents sell factory, say goodbye, and move across the country for jobs.

Got first decent paying job and grownup apartment

Lost job, kept apartment.

Found new, much better job.

Spent Christmas out west with parents. Realized for the first time in a decade everyone was settled and happy.

Of course the past ten years involved lots of transitions and changes for me – I went from age 17 to 27, and those years just kind of de facto mean growing and change right?

-Graduated high school
-Moved away from home and became completely financially independent
-Started university
-Met and started dating future husband; moved in together after three months
-Suffered depression amongst other medical problems
-Graduated from university with no clue what to do for a career
-Future husband found great paying job that meant I experienced financial security AND abundance for the first time in my life
-Bought my first (used) car, also the first one not needing repairs every month, and what a relief!
-Found a somewhat okay job for myself
-Married
-Finally had several medical conditions officially diagnosed and began treatment; depression gone
-Helped sister and kids leave emotionally abusive husband/father and move to the city where I live
-Discovered the fat-acceptance movement, which has quite literally saved my sanity and prevented a relapse into depression
-Decided to quit boring job after two years and go to grad school
-Mother died unexpectedly at age 59
-Started grad school and quit one week later
-Still clueless about career, volunteered at various organizations for one year, no paid work; spent year overcoming feelings of failure and inadequacy
-Father had heart attack but has fully recovered; still very concerned about his health as he has many other age-related problems
-Accepted job offer at one of the non-profits where I volunteered
-Acquired many new responsibilities at job, liking it quite well. While still unsure about future career, not so stressed about it.
-Bought first house
-Husband and I have finally reached a decision on the question of having children; will be adopting in next few years…we haven’t laid out a specific timeline

But there are so many little things that have shaped me – enough that without them I wouldn’t be who I am. The Internet is probably at the top of the list; it became a regular part of my life in 1998, so it’s not quite synched up with the 00′s, but close enough.

I feel like a very different person from my 17-year-old self. I believe part of that is clearly due to the continuing maturation of my brain, which is just biological. The way my brain works has changed enough to affect my personality to an extent, and some of that has been involuntary, but I’ve also consciously changed many of my thought-patterns. Or tried. I am much less cynical these days, for example.

I am predicting lots of change for me and my family in the next ten years. Maybe things will settle down in my 40s.

I turned 16 just before 2000 began and turned 26 just before 2010 began.

So I got my learner’s permit
Crashed the car (while only a permit driver)
Didn’t get the license for a couple years
Went to college in the Bronx (and met some of the best people I know to date)
Went to grad school/moved to Brooklyn
Met my insignificant other
Graduated into a recession
Moved back home and felt like I regressed 10 years
Got my first car, a 2001 escort that my uncle gave me
Got my first “real” job doing something I’m really not thrilled with
Decided I really need to move back to the greater NY area where my friends are all located along with the insignificant other (ok that was only in the past couple weeks, so it belongs in the Teens)

I much prefer the “Oughts” or “Aughts” to the “Naughties.” :)

Let’s see the last decade. Was pretty boring for me.
Had two children
Bought a house (which is now worth less than half of what we paid for it. *sigh*)
Starting finishing my degree

That’s pretty much it, I think. I met and married my husband last century. :)

Graduated with my BA and got married in 1999..

The “Oughts” included:
First prof job (hated it..BORING)
Moved to SC for 9 months (can’t take me out of NE for that long)
Adopted our first fur baby (seamus, a dashing yellow blab = lab/beagle mix)
Returned home to MA and prof job #2 (decent)
Grad school (great experience)
Bought and renovated a condo
First post-grad job (definitely enjoyed that one)
Adopted fur baby #2 (Lady Veruca – Sato rescue from PR)
Sold condo
New job (3.5 yrs in and still like it – huge for me!)
Bought House
Celebrated 10 year anniversary

Along the way we travelled to NC, SC, Washington DC, ME, VT, Alaska, NH, Jamaica, Aruba, San Fransisco, Las Vegas, AZ, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard

Between the condo, house and travel we ended the “oughts” pretty broke, but had a blast!

Had to think twice about this, because I feel like a monument to resting inertia–same job, same partner, same town (though we did move, after twenty years.)

The audiences for my writing and singing have grown pleasingly into the hundreds, still mostly people I know. The Mozart opera roles were a highlight–the Phoenix called me ‘charming.’

Pretty much where I want to be, though the unknown unknowns loom.

A commenter somewhere pointed out that Grandpa Simpson called the 190?’s dickity-one, dickity-two, and so on. So, I will always call the last decade the “dickities.”

The dickities were for me, mostly, the dissertation years. Let those years be darkness, let light not shine upon them. Let gloom and deep darkness seize them. Let them not rejoice among the years of the century.

But they were also the years in which The Boy was born, grew tall, learned Taekwon-do and how to lie to his parents, and made me happy in some measure every single day. So, there’s that.

“What are you doing when you’re not in transition?” I’ll let you know if and when, sister.