Decade Dent

Ten years ago, we were still embarking on a decade of hope and change. We got change. By the bucketful. I still have hope, though I confess that the past few years have taken their toll on that outlook. 
A decade ago, I wrote, "Then again, most of this year will be tediously the same. Routine days in hum-drum weeks, with the anticipation of any break in the monotony: vacations, weddings, birthdays, Pop Tarts. It's a New Year, breathe in, breathe out, move on." Each time we round this particular corner, there is some mild expectation that things will be different. How could they stay the same? The only constant is change. Heraclitus said that. Many decades ago. Known as "Heraclitus the Obscure" for his fondness of wordplay, I suppose I can see myself as an heir to that obscurity. 
Ten years ago, I was the father of a twelve year old. I was on the edge of raising a teenager. This was a job for which I had prepared by living through it. My own teenage years, that is. I turn around now and there's a grownup where that kid used to stand. He's the one teaching me now, more often than not. His electronics expertise has kept me looking clever as I move around my "smart home." 
In the past ten years, my wife has written a number of books. She's been to Europe. Twice. I stayed home. But I did some writing. If you have been sitting at home for the the teens, then you may have had a chance to catch up on my daily grind. Maybe you read about how I was an elementary school teacher. Or my feelings regarding mass shootings. Spoiler alert: if you're stopping by here for the first time, I'm against them. Perhaps you have even noticed a certain tone in my writing, something indefinable. Or simply defined. I don't care for change. 
But it happens. All the time. Every day. Subsequently, when you pack up ten years of days, you notice how much change becomes unavoidable. There was that flurry when David Bowie, Prince and Tom Petty went to Rock and Roll Heaven. This is an example of the kind of change to which I am very unhappy. Sad, even. By contrast, having my son invite his mother and I along to The Galaxy's Edge in Disneyland was the kind of change that I could get used to. 
Back in 2010, I didn't really think about retirement. Now I get asked about it as if it were a pressing concern. Getting our son into the college of his choice has morphed into getting him out in one piece. I have also been married for more than a quarter century now, which gives me the sense of lack of change that somehow fulfills me.
There is something else going on in the White House now. Very different than how we began the decade. I hope that the twenties provide us with a return to normalcy, which would be change at this point. "The more things change, the more they stay the same," said Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, several decades after Heraclitus. This was a French guy, who knew a little about change. Writers, you know?