Honestly, until I started seeing it everywhere, I hadn’t given one minute’s thought to the end of 2019 being the end of a decade! Now I feel like not only do I have to review the year, I have to examine the decade. What have I learned? How have I changed? How am I different now than I was in 2009? You know, simple little stuff like that.

So I pulled out the many, many journals I’ve kept over the past 10 years and skimmed some highlights. As I’m sure everyone has already noticed in their own lives, a lot happens in a decade!

To name just a few of the things that changed:

Ten years ago, we had a teenager at home. I was barely working as a freelance writer and editor, and I didn’t yet have a blog or a writer’s website. We had an entirely different set of pets than we have now, except for Tank. All of my parents and stepparents were living, and two of my grandmothers. I had yet to pick up a watercolor brush.

Over the past 10 years, I’ve read hundreds of books, seen multiple movies and touring Broadway musicals, traveled many wonderful places, experienced a couple of depressive episodes, endured home renovations, and exchanged my old car for a new one.

My experiences over the past 10 years have likely been similar to yours. Though the details might differ, we are more alike than we are different when it comes to the things we value most. I wish more people would remember this.

The past 10 years have been full to bursting with life in all its “good” and “bad” manifestations. I’m so grateful that I started Catching Happiness at the end of 2009, because it helped me better focus on what was happening in my life, at least partly because I would later mine my experiences for post material. And the topic I chose—simple pleasures and everyday adventures—was calculated to help me find and savor more of the good in life, as well as, I hoped, add to the sum total of the positive in the world. I wanted the blog to be a bright spot for anyone who needed one.

Over the next few days, I’ll continue thinking over not only what has happened during the past year, but also what has happened over the past 10 years. And since a new decade seems like a hopeful thing, I might even start looking forward to the next 10 years (if I’m lucky) of simple pleasures and everyday adventures life has in store.

When you look back the past 10 years of your life, what strikes you? What milestones have you passed, what joys and sorrows have enriched your life? And what are your expectations for the next 10 years?