With only 16 days lef tin this decade, I’ve started to feel more turbulent emotions of how I feel that a huge new chapter is opening in my constantly growing and exhausting life. I don’t mean to say that I have it terribly hard but the last year in particular was much heavier than those that preceded it.

I’m in a boarding school and I’ve tried talking to my roommate about what it feels like to leave this decade, and that’s where we seem to have horrifically differing opinions on what it should mean to us. For him, he doesn’t seem to care very much and that kind of makes me upset. I’m 16 and he’s 17, and I can’t see why he doesn’t see the significance of this decade to us and our generation. It was the 2010s that we began to become who we are today. Before 6 years old I seriously didn’t know anything, other than to walk, talk and sleep. Admittedly I was probably behind most children as it took me until I was seven to learn the months of the year (I was preocupied watching Ben 10 and such other things obviously). This was the decade I began my “serious” education, I began to form my own concious, no longer completely following all my parents and superior’s orders or rules. I questioned authority and really thought about things. This was both good and bad but in the end made me who I am. My last year without a doubt was definetly the one in which I truly became who I am. Up until I was fifteen I had probably grown as a person by 50% and the other 50% was from this last year. I had my GCSEs, I made most of my friends, I embraced my true identity and accepted my suppressed sexuality after so many years and then came out. This academic year I’ve started the works of making LGBTQ+ members of my school more empowered and less afraid, though there still is a lot to do. All I can say is that at the beginning of September last year, I could not have possibly imagined how much my life would have evolved and it makes me both nostalgic and on the verge of tears as I think back to the days of me trying to be someone who was not really me.

Enough on me, I imagine that a lot will have changed for older people on this planet. Some would have gotten married and had kids in this single decade. People have been crossing the globe in a constant fret, so many people that are to dictate the future were born, whilst so many also have moved on to whatever comes after this life. I don’t really know how I feel about a new decade where I am actually concious and thinking, “wow, a new decade”, but I believe it’s something between sadness, regret and a spark of happiness and hope for an even brighter future.

I really hope everyone has enjoyed the last decade as I did for the most part and it’s times like this that make you really think about life I believe. I’m sure you may have regrets about the last decade but also can look back at the good times too.

I think I should probably stop this ramble, whislt I still am somewhat emotionally intact, but thank everyone for the average, crap, mediocre, amazing, fantastic, trash, fab and something of a decade, and wish you the best for 2020.

Love,

John.