Year Zero

I started writing this in February. Time to hit publish. :) -Micah

This year, for me, is Year Zero. Why?

Well, one good reason is that it's year zero of the new decade. Calendar nerds will tell you that 2010 is NOT the first year of a new decade, but the last year of the decade that stretched from 2001-present. These are the same people who told us the new millennium didn't start in 2000, but in 2001, a year later. After all, they gloat, there is no year zero AD.

They are correct, our calendar transitions from 1 BC to 1 AD, leaving no room for year zero, a fact which continues to irk me.

But that's beside the point. 2010 turned over the digits in our calendar, driving home the fact that we are now quite removed from the year 2000.

For me, there's a stranger reason. I'm 28, and will be for most of 2010. And when my dad was 28, I was born.

This means that from here on out, I can begin to remember what my dad was like at my age. Or, a weirder way to put it, if I was my dad, the child-version of me would be age zero right now. The significant thing is that I once had a very specific perspective on someone who was 30, 35, 40 - and now I have reached the point where I can begin to be that person.

It's zero-point for me in other ways as well. I've been a working musician for 7 years now. For me, seven years seems like it means something. Just like a week - after 7 days, everything starts over. And then things are reborn, things are transformed.

Everything is starting over, and who knows what that will mean?