End of a decade

I was reading the Observer Music Monthly's feature on music from the last decade and it suddenly struck me that we're just over a month away from one decade ending and a new one starting and I hadn't even realised until today. I was so baffled by this that I asked out loud "does this decade end this year or next?". My friend Lucy said next year but as I sat there, counting the years from 2000 to 2009 on my fingers, it dawned on me that the decade was coming to a close...

It feels like the decade it trying to end quietly, without anyone noticing, a bit like someone leaving a party without saying good-bye to anyone as they don't want people to know they've left. It feels like the noughties are trying to sneak out, tip-toe away without anyone making too much fuss. Is there something strange going on or is this what happens when you're a decade older and wiser? I know in general it's been a strange year globally because of the recession but even without that, I can't quite decide how I feel about this year. Generally when I look back over the year, I can easily identify the highs and the not-so-highs and the year will have a particular feel to it, it'll get lodged in my memory bank for particular reasons. 2009 just doesn't feel like that....

I can see the good things that have happened in the year, but these have often been the result of an otherwise not great situation - they've been the silver linings to my clouds. It's not been an ecstatically high or horribly low year but it's coming to an end and I'm not sure quite how I'll remember it.

I remember 1989 coming to a close and the excitement of a new decade about to start. Excitement tinged with a little apprehension, you're 20, you think you know everything about everything but actually you know nothing as you have little or no life experience. You're excited about what the new decade will bring but at the same time wondering what exactly it will bring and all you can do is wonder. The Berlin Wall had come down a few months earlier, I'd left home and started university and the adventure had just begun. Soul II Soul were singing about a new decade, I'd just read an article that profoundly changed my life as it resonated in a way that nothing had done before.

The end of 1999 seemed to be an even bigger affair for everyone, not just the end of a decade but the end of a millenium. Everyone was wondering if there'd be an IT meltdown just as we welcomed in the year 2000. It seemed like a big deal then but imagine it now - technology has leapt so far forwards that if you took away the internet and mobiles and other gadgets from people, even for a few hours, there would certainly be a meltdown - of the human kind....

Lets see what this new decade brings!