Usually, New Year’s Eves are inherently nostalgic for me. Even if the past 365 days weren’t the greatest – as was true in 2009, what with infant sleep struggles, toddler potty training struggles, a parade of home repairs and my mother-in-law’s cancer recurrence – I  reflect with my rose-colored glasses firmly perched on. (As an aside, I always kind of wanted a pair of those oversize, glittery New Year’s specs you see the Time Square crowd sporting, with the two zeroes as the lenses. Never got one, and now the decade’s over. Yeah, yeah, I know, not really. A pair of 2010s is still going to obstruct your vision, mathematicians.)

Point is, time flies. And as both this year and decade close out, I’m realizing several of my life’s eras also wrapped up during the ‘00s.

• My single life (met husband in ’01; married in ’03)
• My life with both parents (dad died in ’02)
• My pre-parental life (’05, ‘08)
• My uncommitted life (see all of the above, plus a mortgage)
• My thirties (July ’09)
• My journalist life (for the most part. While I blog, my last paid byline was in August ‘09)

It’s taken me the second half of this past decade to come to terms with a lot of those endings, though I chose most voluntarily – another example of nostalgia at work. You alter your circumstances, then gaze longingly back at the way life was. Parenthood especially. I love my kids. But during infancy and toddlerhood, the ratio of rewarding to slogging is seriously skewed to the latter. Thankfully, we’ve only getting older to look forward to.

Now less than 12 hours from a new decade, I’m ready to exchange nostalgia for anticipation. What will the 2010s, my forties, hold? Does my best-selling novelist life lie ahead? The life when I incorporate my family into the travel that I loved pre-2005? What sad endings that I wouldn’t choose – like my dad’s death – lie ahead?

Carly Simon sang that these are the good old days. We’ll see in 2019. Now, let’s get started.

If you got here via the November-December issue of Grand Traverse Woman magazine, welcome!

Thanks to GTW for publishing my essay on p. 8 of the current issue. I know Kandy from quite a while back, when we were both on staff at the Record-Eagle. Glad to share pages again.

ThisMommyGig.org has accepted me into their contributor fold. I love the subtitle of the site: Mothers who think…and write. (BTW, the ranks include a few dads, too.)

My first post is up today, so wander over and take a look. Be forewarned: it’s long.

Those who came here from there, welcome to my blog! Here is my favorite picture of the trio who provide my subject matter (and me, too.)

Noga-Henderson family, Aug. 2009