Oh Billy Joel, how I miss being able to listen to your music. Otherwise, I’d actually have “Souvenir” on my iPod. But after the embarrassingly awful alcohol poisoning incident in 2008, which landed me in the hospital and caused my acquientence to miss the entirity on Last Play At Shea, I have been unable to listen to you without cringing. This is a shame, because you play in the background of so many of the scenes of the first half of my decade. Luckily, Dar Williams sort of takes over at a point.

Anyway, to complete the chorus “Every Year’s A Souvenir/That Slowly Fades Away”

Here are ten of them.

In the first minutes of 2000 I was kissing The Ex on the street outside an acquaintances house. I was in love. I would fight harder for him than I have fought for anyone since. Richie was still my best friend, though later in the year, a betrayal of trust and my own stubbornness would destroy our closeness. I lost my virginity that summer. My best female friend was Marianne, and while we were close the rest of high school, I haven’t talked to her since then.

In 2001, I was still in love. Academic decathlon was the center of my universe though, and it was worth it, because I got to go to Alaska with all my best friends – the guys on the team – Brent (my Best Friend), Jon, and Joe. I was confident, in that naively arrogant way you can only be as a senior in high school. In September, I headed to Hampshire College, which I would hate from the first day. I would spend the next months (and years, really) visiting The Ex on weekends.

Much of 2002 made no sense. I transferred to Skidmore. I met HWSNBN and humiliated myself almost immediately with my crush (and I was still with The Ex. There was some denial going on.) I also hurt my Best Friend very badly because I was selfish and stupid. After a few drunken emails, he kept me around, and pretended it had never happened.

In 2003, I was a self-righteous bitch most of the time. I was pretty horrible to my roommate Steph, and I still feel bad about it. I went to Italy for 6 weeks and made two friends who I haven’t seen since (one of them, Aubrey, I haven’t talked to since. I just found her through google, and think about emailing her). I crushed heavily on HWSNBN. I joined the Young Republicans Club as the token libertarian. I was an overachieving government major.

2004 began with me aching for change and not quite knowing it. I listened to the BNL song “War on Drugs” over and over that January. I went to Amsterdam for Model EU and I met this boy and we made out on a beach at the Bungalow Park in the freezing cold, and we talked and talked, and I got a glimpse of what I could be like, if I could just remember how to be myself. I came back home and went back to Skidmore for the spring semester, and HWSNBN was suddenly giving me these looks all the time. One night, I went out with him and a few other people and our professor, and afterwards, he came over to my house and we were sitting on the couch downstairs and he looked at me and said “You’re beautiful” and we kissed and I know it sounds pathetic, but that is still one of my top ten moments ever. I dumped The Ex the next day. I didn’t dump him for HWSNBN – it was time to break up anyway. The rest of 2004 was drama with HWSNBN. He broke my heart. I was very, very sad for a very long time. At the very end of 2004 (and the end of my college career) things did start to look up. 2004 was a very educational year.

2005 - I spent the first moments of 2005 in tears, over HWSNBN, who I was supposed to have been kissing, but things don’t go as planned. I quit B&N (finally) to temp for $15 an hour which seemed like a fortune at the time. I moved to Jersey City and started working at PLI, the place that would change my life. I made so many friends there. I briefly got involved with a guy I knew was all wrong for me. It was icky

2006 – I moved to Astoria and it was the best decision ever. Between Astoria and PLI, and Meet-up, I had gobs of friends everywhere. I went out all the time. I laughed all the time. I started hanging out with Jill-IAN and Drucifer. I started talking to The Ex again, and that summer we formed an overly close, inappropriate friendship via phone. I went off to University of Chicago at the end of the greatest summer of my life, and I was popular enough to warrant two good-bye parties. U Chicago wasn’t what I expected. I didn’t like my advisor. I drank too much. The Ex found himself a girlfriend, and while it didn’t break my heart, it came pretty close.

2007- is a blur, filled with self-destructiveness. I broke my Best Friend’s heart, the same one who forgave me for the same crime in 2002. I drank way, way too much. I hurt my parents with my self-destructive behavior. Somewhere in there I managed to write an MA thesis, graduate (in less than 9 months) move back to NYC, get the Job-That-Wasn’t, get the apartment (that wasn’t) and started seeing Older-Libertarian-Boy, who was 10 years my senior and Trouble. I also managed to flirt with Ohio (via AIM), meet-up with Richie, and get overly invested in the Libertarian Message Board. I hated my job even though I told everyone I liked it. Hated it. I was very anti-social. I went to work and I came home from work and I spent a lot of time in my room and I drank too much vodka.

2008 began with the vague desire that it would be better than 2007 and the pit in my stomach that told me it wouldn’t be, unless I could change my behavior, REALLY change. I plodded along the few months, still seeing Older-Libertarian-Boy and knowing he was pretty much HWSNBN 2.0. When I got fired in April, it made part of my decision for me. I moved into my parents house in Jersey (temporarily, I said) and started to get help. Things were better for awhile. Then I made a disastrous trip out to Chicago with OLB for a Libertarian Message Board meet-up (and, for me, to meet Ohio). Everything that could go wrong did. Twenty minutes into the fourteen hour drive home from Chicago, OLB told me he didn’t want to see me anymore. The rest of that summer was a disaster. But Keith, who was also stuck at home, and I bonded. But then I started The-Job-That-Was (i.e., my current job.) It gave me back some of my confidence that had been destroyed by the job-that-wasn’t. I was still doing stupid things though. 2008 was garbage in its own uniquely awful way.

The first quarter of 2009 the stupid things continued. I finally crashed and burned on March 17^th and while it was a very expensive mistake, it was probably the best thing that could have happened, considering. This year, which Keith and I dubbed “Year of the Terrapin” has been about waiting and being stuck and moving forward in tiny, internal ways. The Libertarian Fellowship rejection sort of puts a damper on any good will feelings I may harbor towards this year. But even though it is not obvious to outsiders (and at times, not even to me) I know that 2009 was a better year than 2008.

What I wish for the next decade, is the ability to be more honest with myself and to let go of the insecurities that sometimes prevent me from being honest with others. And of course I want all the usuals – the career advancement, the new apartment in DC, (and really, the eventual return to NYC) and yes, a boy would be nice.

But really, I just want to be as happy as people like me can be.