You could have single-handedly redeemed 2009, Northwestern.

Believe me, I would have loved to have ended this with, Oh, and I got into graduate school. But of course, I still know nothing. More waiting.

That's kind of how I feel about 2009. Waiting. I watched people I loved suffer. I suffered. But it was also the year that I started senior year of college. The first year I really felt like an adult. The year I started to deal with Grandpa dying. The year I started to deal with what happened after Grandpa died. The year I spent entirely too much money on clothes.

(Oh. Are we not being superficial now?)

This is the first decade I remember completely. I remember New Year's Eve of 1999. The last ten years have been...well, it's ridiculous to say I've changed because, um, I was twelve, of course I've changed. But when you remember changing? That's pretty important. So I feel kind of badly that the end of the decade for me was kind of like purgatory. I don't know what's going to happen next, but hopefully I'm being prepared for something much better.

(Although the theology student in me refuses to let that metaphor go. Doctrinally, if you're in purgatory, you're definitely going to heaven. At some point. Whatever. It still kind of works.)

2008 was horrible. So horrible I can't refer to it as anything other than a sucking black hole of evil. It rivaled 2002, and that, my friends, is really hard to do here at Chez Morena. I think the whole house thing ends up associated with 2008 in my mind, even though that's not completely true. Please, you can read tearful posts here and here.

2009 was less dramatic in terms of all . There were fewer meltdowns. I was able to get through holiday dinners without...well. (I think a lot of it was the counter top.) Today, we met with the woman who will be moving in tomorrow. She's great, turns out she's a former friend, we knew her kids, awesome. It's horrible that she's living there for no reason except that she's not me.

But I realized this afternoon (as I was standing in the bedroom crying because hey! I painted this! With my friend! And there's my blood on the walls! Literally. Who the hell do you think you are living here with your monthly check crazy woman?) that it's not the end.

Because the next decade? Will be the decade that I move in.

(In fact, if I find anyone who doesn't have access to yesterday's post, it may even being the decade that there are kids there again.)

As Bill (another rather awesome part of 2009- hi, Bill!) just posted on my Facebook wall, it's a beginning.