Saying goodbye to the oughts

A very Happy New Year to you and yours, this post is a touch late as I’ve been shaking off the holiday fog that I’ve been stuck in the past week.

So the ball has dropped and a new year has begun, or at least that’s what they tell me. The pregnant one and I watched a movie, then popped the top on a bottle of the finest sparkling pomegranate apple juice money can buy, enjoyed some marizpan and turned in around eleven.

With the “oughts” over (or were they the “naughts”?) I’ve taken some time to reflect back on the past ten years of my life. They certainly had their ups and downs for me, but in looking back I’m confident that in the end I came out ahead in many ways.

The decade started out with a great deal of promise for me, as I had decided four years into my professional career that it was time for me to start my own business. It only took a year and a half, and my life savings, to teach me a painful lesson. The business I started was in the financial services realm and can best be described as good idea, wrong time.

At the end of 2001 I rolled into Charlotte on my last tank of gas, with only $200 to my name and fortune that I had great friends that were willing to let me crash in their guest room for a few months while I plotted how I was going to take over the world. After a few false starts I put my nose to the grindstone and resuscitated a career I realistically should have re-engineered instead.

Despite my new found success, I still felt like something was missing in my life. I didn’t particularly like what I did, but I was good at it and it enabled me to get back on my feet and buy my first home, as well as a few others that became investments. As I felt the tides turning in my professional life, I decided that it might be time to focus on an otherwise nonexistent personal life.

Once I made that decision things really began to change as the even numbered years became some of my best ever. I would meet my wife in 2004, be fortunate enough to marry her in 2006 and, ultimately, welcome our son into the world in 2008. And while I didn’t do so hot with my resolutions for 2009 at least I finished the decade on a strong note.

As we say goodbye to the oughts, I’m thankful for all the experiences I’ve had as they have helped to shape the person I am today. Now that the calendar has turned to 2010 I look forward to watching my son continue to grow and am busy preparing to welcome our second child into the world in June.

And while I should consider myself blessed, if it wouldn’t be too much to ask, I’d also really like a modest bump in real estate values