The rhythm of things

I've decided to let the whole decade thing go. Lots of people are writing interesting commentary on the previous 10 years, struggling to find a name for this era, let alone trying to identify the salient points of such an intense time.
That's fine. It makes for some interesting reading, a chance to look back down the hill. I'm all for a healthy measure of reflection, but using decades doesn't have a lot of resonance for me.
Turning 10, for example, was less of a milestone than moving from the sixth to the seventh grade. In the seventh grade, we joined a regional school system, meaning both a new school and a new school with kids I'd not grown up with. That had much more impact on my life than hitting double-digits.

Similarly, turning 20 was nothing special, but I sure do remember turning 21. (That I don't remember large chunks of time afterwards is a story for another day.)
Other personal reference points, including our wedding date, birth dates of our children and grandchildren, death dates of my parents - all of these significant dates fill up our calendar from year to year, giving us joyful and sombre memories.
The 10-year chunk of time that's passing, however, doesn't have much more relevance than watching the odometer click over to 100,000 miles on one of our cars. (Even that's less of a big deal since they added the sixth digit to the display.)
Sure, I remember New Year's Eve 1999. We had a sauna and then a swim through the ice at the camp. We stayed awake until midnight, saw that the lights didn't go out, and went to bed.
This year, we'll head out with our three youngest granddaughters for First Night. If I start talking about the last decade to these kids, they'll listen politely for a few minutes and then change the subject.
And that's the way it should be.