I don’t know if the year 2010 marks the beginning of a new decade or the end of the current one. In the scheme of things, it probably makes little difference. What’s another 365 days to a decade, really? Time magazine has already called it quits on this decade, naming it the “decade from hell”. Harsh words for a poor old decade. Upon further reflection, though, I think Time magazine may be on to something. Whether it was as bad as the decades that housed the Great Depression or World Wars, I wouldn’t know. But overall, it has been a pretty crappy few years.

We started it off with Y2K, the collective code brown over a potential software glitch that could have caused the end of the world as we knew it. Following the Y2K fade-to-black that never was, we began the year 2000 laughing (or not) over the Bush/Gore hanging chad fiasco. We were smiling all the way to September 11, 2001. Shell-shocked, we asked ourselves, “What happened?” Fast forward a few years to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Residents of New Orleans begged for help from what remained of the Superdome. The images from CNN left us shaking our heads in disbelief. We said to ourselves, “I can’t believe it happened”. Jump ahead a few more years to the economic collapse during the fall of 2008. Things had gotten so crazy, we simply remarked, “Of course it happened”.

During this mayhem, our fearless leader, George W. Bush, made ridiculous claims like “Mission Accomplished” and distracted us with his audition for Dancing with the Stars. (For a good laugh, or a cry, click here to see that atrocity.) Meanwhile, Al Gore resurfaced from under a rock to laugh demonically in our faces for choosing such a loser and to remind us that the world was going to end from global warming. Then, Barack Obama rode in on his palomino horse and promised that the worst was behind us. For a brief moment, we saw a glimmer of hope, but it is fading fast.

It may be difficult to determine how this “decade from hell” compares to recent decades. If you came of age in the 1960s, with the Kennedy family, Martin Luther King Jr., civil unrest, and free love, this decade might be a downgrade. If you came of age during the 1970s, with disco, polyester leisure suits, and Jimmy Carter, this decade might be an upgrade. And if you came of age in the 1980s, during MTV, the “Just Say No” campaign, the moonwalk, and episodes of Alf, you might just be confused. I know I am.

Despite all the doom and gloom, I’m sure something good happened to you during this decade. Maybe you got married, had a grandchild, saved a life, planted trees, made someone laugh, or started reading (or writing for) When Falls the Coliseum. If that last one is the case, then things are definitely looking up for you.

I once asked someone in his seventh decade to identify the best day of his life. He responded, “I’d like to think it hasn’t happened yet”. So whether the worst decade ever is over or not, here’s hoping we can keep that kind of perspective for decades to come.

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