rachg82

Question: how lazy does it make me that I still haven't taken down my xmas lights? I suppose I should probably get around to that, huh?

And speaking of things I need to get around to, I think it's about time I wrapped up my end-of-the-year stuff considering it's, you know, January. I technically never did finish my End of the Decade Vidfest (there were still a few left I'd wanted to include), but that's not a big deal. Afterall, I do post a vid with every entry anyway, so it's not like I can't just throw the remaining ones back in the mix to share at a later date. At least I still got a few good BSG ones in there, along with some other 2000-2009 fave shows as well. So it all works out.[/unnecessary ramble]

Really, the only things left that I care to finish now are my 2010 resolutions, and the Top TV/Pairings of the Decade post I mentioned in my last entry. (yes, I will use any excuse to flail over television. Are you surprised?)

First up, resolutions:

1. Attend more events for my meetup group and be more social in general
2. Find some poor fool to go on a date with me
3. Be more physically active & lose weight in a healthy way. (I somehow already lost 4/5 pounds just by making a few smart changes in my diet--i.e. "yes, Rachael, oatmeal for breakfast is better than fried bacon"--so here's to a good start!)
4. Perform well at my job so that I can be hired on permanently when the hiring freeze lifts

And, maybe--no promises--but I will try to see if I can get myself to take at least one class (even if it's just online) and/or get my chicken-shit ass in a car & try driving again. WE'LL SEE.

Now, with that out of the way, onto the End of the Decade TV Lovage!

After much careful deliberation, I decided to make it a Top 10 list. . .with a few extra honorable mentions because I'm an indecisive cheater like that. Hee. And then, once that's done, I'll finish things out with my Top 3 Shipper Pairings. If I do my job right, you should all be 100% OD'd on TV goodness & joy by the time we're through.

( Top 10 Shows of 2000-2009 )

( Top 3 Shipper Pairings )

Okay, so those of you who have been reading my journal since the beginning will probably remember the Year in Review Posts I used to do, which contained excerpts from the entries I'd written throughout the year. Well, here's where I show my over-ambitious side, because I'm doing a Decade in Review Post this time. Yeah, you heard me.

At first I wasn't sure if I wanted to, because I knew it meant going back through A LOT of writing to pick the quotes I wanted, and because I knew it meant reliving some really painful memories. It also meant I had to decide if I wanted to make it friends only or even custom-friends only, so that only the people on here who knew me back then would see it, since I wasn't quite sure how I felt about opening up my past in such a stark way to those of you who've only just "met" me over the last few months. It's scary to be vulnerable like that and I didn't know how/if it might change people's perceptions of me who didn't know me back then.

But when the clock struck midnight on Thursday night, I started crying. The decade that saw me graduate from high school, lose my grandfather, watch the twin towers fall, go through therapy, try to make it through college, move into my first apartment, become an aunt, start to finally come to terms with my sexuality--that decade was over. Now, you might think that those tears were from sadness, but they weren't. It was catharsis. Deep and right from the heart. My life and the world now is by no means perfect, but it's here. I'm here to see it. That 18/19 year old kid who thought she couldn't live another day made it 3,650 more days. One at a time.

So, thinking of that, along with all the good memories--night-long chats with lj friends, the metaboard & Television Without Pity drama (omg, remember those days guys?!), dorky X-Files & Buffy marathons with dosidella, being Jayden's "Super Nanny", how I felt everytime I made progress against the anxiety & depression, moving out and having my own place, the list goes on--and I realized that none of it was anything to hide or be ashamed of. I'm proud of it. And also, if there's even a small chance that someone going through a similar experience might feel less alone & more hopeful after reading what I wrote, then that right there makes it worth keeping public.

And now, with that being said, on to the boring details: I'm going to divide the post into two entries to cut the length. The first starts out with a few excerpts from my old private journal, which had conveniently already been typed up for my 2002 Year in Review post (but which unfortunately doesn't include much of anything from 2000/2001 as I have no idea where that old journal is anymore). It then moves quickly into my live journal posts--which began in September of 2002--and moves on through the years until now. I won't lie to you guys, it starts out dark. Really dark. But eventually things lighten up. I tried not to sugarcoat it by editing out the really painful stuff (except for the sake of length & repetitiveness of course), but I also made a point of including fun memories as well. Aside from the serious stuff, there were quite a few things here that made me laugh out loud to re-read. Everything from funny IM conversations to my sister's pregnancy to X-Files squeeing to my lovah obsession, it's all here to relive.

Those of you who knew me during the last seven years will hopefully get a nostalgic trip down memory lane from reading this, and those of you who just met me will hopefully at least get an interesting read if nothing else. And if no one has time to read it--which I'd understand frankly, because this bad boy is long & people have lives--then that's okay too. Hopefully the preceding paragraphs can stand for themselves in that case. And at the very least, it'll be here for me to look back upon should I ever forget just how far I've come.

P.S. Sometime either later tonight or tomorrow, I plan to also do a short "2010 resolutions" post & a much more lighthearted "TV Decade in Review" entry as well, which will include my top 10 (or 12, haven't decided yet) shows from the last ten years and which will also include a special Vid dedication to my top 3 pairings of the decade (Mulder/Scully, Booth/Brennan, & Roslin/Adama of course). Just giving the heads-up now so everyone can prepare for the inevitable capslock and flail. Heh.

But ANYWAY, enough introduction, and let's get to it!

( Decade in Review Part I: What fails to kill you. . . )