2019 is leaving and 2020 is almost here. Another year, another decade in the books, and what a decade it’s been.
Ten years ago today I was a thirteen year old still living in Arizona. I was still working on my first or second horrible draft of my first novel, The Book of Ardilia. I don’t think I had even read Lord of the Rings yet. The first MCU Iron Man and Hulk movies were only a year old, and Marvel Studios wasn’t owned by Disney yet. America’s first ever black president, President Obama, was navigating his first year in office and was about to lead us into the most pop culture decade there ever was; and the same president would later ratify marriage equality. Women and those subjected to abuse raised their voices with #MeToo, causing real cultural waves across the country, even the world. Star Wars found its way back into cinemas with a more diverse cast, a female lead, and lots of mixed reviews. We got our first female led superhero movies with Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel. The Fourth Industrial Revolution of AI and tech took new, huge strides, and people like presidential candidate Andrew Yang are stepping up to guide the American people through it. We saw huge numbers in regards to climate change, and we saw some world leaders, some lawmakers, and Time Magazine’s Person of the Year Greta Thunberg stand up to bear the burden of progress on the issue.
Today I live in Oregon. I got married to the person of my dreams. My author and writing career isn’t quite where I want it to be yet, but I’m writing every day and running this blog that’s been wonderful for me. And a week ago my wife gave birth to our beautiful baby girl—without an epidural, because she was in labor for 24 hours without realizing it. (I’ll tell that whole story in a post after the new year.) And that precious baby is everything to me.
I won’t stand here and say this decade has been all smiles and progress. There’s still need for more racial and gender justice. We’ve got a big step to make towards climate and prison reform. There’s a new, unsteady world stage forming in global politics. But we’ve also made such amazing progress, and will continue to do so in 2020 and beyond. I want to raise my baby girl in a kinder, braver world, and I’m confident that Victoria and I will be able to.
This is a shorter post than usual because, simply put, you don’t sleep much with a newborn in the home! Even though she’s been so sweet and calm, her awake time has been at about 2AM. However, like last year, at the bottom of this entry I’m going to include the top two visited posts from the year, and then I’ll also include the most visited post since I started the blog as a tribute to the decade as a whole.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, Hanukkah, an ongoing Kwanzaa, or whatever you chose to celebrate this year.
Here’s to a brand new 2020 and a Happy New Year!
Most Popular Posts of 2019:
A Letter To My Daughter,
Originally Posted October 1st
If Life and Marriage Were A Train: A Bad Analogy,
Originally Posted May 8th
Most Popular Posts of the Decade:
BJL // A New Thing Design 
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