Well.
We're 10 years into the new millennium, "the future". My adult life thus far is encompassed by that decade. The decade where the innocence of youth was slain by the realities of adulthood.
Nerdwife and I were married in the last year of the 90s. A decade I look back to now with the fuzzy memories of nostalgia. Yeah times were tough and were not always the best, but I had the energy of youth and the feelings that nothing couldn't be overcome with some work.
The decade started with a fizzle. My first Presidential election where I decided to vote resulted in a political mess. No clear winner, President decided by the Supreme Court...the beginning of the Bush era and the decline of America. Only we didn't know it yet, illusions were created and fabricated and even to this day are kept in place about those 8 years and how truly fucked we were and still are. It left a bad taste in my mouth.
Then September 11, 2001. I'm not even gonna go there.
2002 was a year that hit me close to home. It was the year my life changed, forever. I was diagnosed with cancer. My life was paused for six months while I was treated and recovered. I watched two new friends die to the same disease I had, but I survived. The kick in the gut with cancer, is you're never cured. You're just in durable remission. Forever will I have a shadow in the background of my life following me. The shadow is uncertainty that I will or won't relapse. Or develop another cancer from the treatment or some other complications from the poisons used to treat the disease. Time helps, you think less of it. But its still there, it always will be, and for me it comes back during the dark, quiet moments of the night. It something a cancer survivor has to learn to cope with and deal with. Its part of the package.
2003 was a blur, just trying to get back into life. Nerdwife started looking at going to Graduate School.
2004 we move to Rochester. I got a job with an organization where my skills, I felt, would be put to helping people and making the world better. Rochester was a compromise. It wasn't a place that was first choice for either of us. It was going to be a way-station, a rest stop for a few years while Nerdwife got her PhD and I had a chance achieve a goal I've had of using my skills to help other people while still dealing with my "survivors guilt". And for a few years it was a nice rest, we met many new people, some who became friends. We took some trips, saw some real, live whales. Things were going good, the future was looking brighter. I started losing weight and became healthier.
2008, the dream became a nightmare, the rest-stop an oubliette. And we're still dealing with it. Its hard for us both now to trust anyone. Its hard for us to be close to people, since the people who did those terrible things (which one day I will talk about) to us were "friends". We're a bit adrift now, damaged. Still trying to sort out whats next and where do we go. What frustrates me is those people who conspired so elaborately to ruin our lives haven't done anything with what they won. They got what they wanted, and then they did nothing with it. Its caused depression, paranoia, I've lost all the progress I made with my weight loss due to depression and its damaged many personal relationships and friendships.
So 2010. It can't be any worse than the last 2 years have been. I'm hoping its better, I'm hoping this whole damn decade is better than the last one.
I'll be trying to make it better, its all I can do, dust myself off and try.
