When planes flew into the twin towers in New York I think everyone had a moment of their mortality. Everyone felt different things. My heart went to two things. #1 – I was so glad my best friend wasn’t living in New York anymore and had moved back to Ontario the previous fall. #2 – my high school sweetheart was going to war. There really wasn’t anything that could be done about it. We were attacked on what is essentially our soil – and we couldn’t sit by and not try and get retribution for it. Over the next 9 years these things got all muddled and there never has been a clear conclusion. They got Saddam but really – who was he in the whole attack on U.S. Soil?

I think everyone was affected by that day. In many ways it has shaped us into who we are now. Nearly everyone felt something about what happened. People have been sad, they’ve been angry, they’ve been scared – they’ve been all three. But it was very hard to not feel something.

We went to war in Afghanastan and Iraq.

We’ve seen the worst hurricanes and tsunami’s in our recent memory.

Our heroes have died – our favourites have fallen to illness, drugs or death – sometimes all three.

We rode high for awhile only to have our housing market and our banking systems fall out from under us.

It hasn’t been all horrible. But there isn’t much to look back on and make a best of list in a broad sense. All the best things to happen to me have been intensely personal. Some were brief moments and some took years to develop. I’m sure we can all agree – the best things that happened in the past 10 years involve personal choices and decisions.

Here’s hoping the next 10 years give us some fabulous things to look back on – things we can be proud of. Let’s start with Vancouver 2010 Olympics and keep the ball rolling. Start on an upswing and keep on going.