…the radio plays the sounds we made and everything seems to feel just right. The Aughts are over and looking back on them, it was a damn good decade for me personally. I earned two college degrees, discovered what it is I want to do with my life (even if I only did it for four years), landed a lucrative job, worked my way out of my short-term debt obligations, and bought a home. I rediscovered the benefits of exercise, moved to a new state, and met some amazing friends. Most importantly, I married the love of my life.

Looking forward to The Teens, I expect things to only get better. I’m going to continue my exercising and plan on being in the best shape I’ve been since my high school years. Another goal is a retirement of sorts. As I mentioned, I know what I want to do with my life. The trouble is that I’m not doing it. There are many reasons for this, mostly financial in nature. If current trends continue, I will have secured at least a decent standard of living for my full retirement later in life and eliminated most, if not all, of my debt obligations. I have a goal of retiring from banking by the end of the decade and enter my second career – teaching collage mathematics.

This also happens to be a perfect time for Jess and I to plan the next phase of our life together. Very recently, we finally dragged ourselves out from underneath the mountain of credit card debt we buried ourselves under during college which opens up new opportunities. Since then, we’ve been having serious discussions on how we want to live. We’ve made some decisions but they’re not all final, some of them are private, and it’s too early to talk about them on a blog. Hopefully, some details will be forthcoming.

While I’m working to make the next ten years better than the last, I’m wishing you a great decade as well!

P.S. For those of you who feel compelled to point out that the new decade actually starts in 2011 because calendars count from 1 and not 0, please don’t. I’m already aware of that fact. While it is technically correct, the changing of the second digit marking a new decade is much more psychologically satisfying. As such, Jan 1st, 2010 is what most people recognize as the decade delineation. Since calendars are already arbitrary and only given meaning by mass agreement I see no reason the definition of a decade should be any different. If you disagree, there’s always your own blog.