Lee Cataluna: Change is gonna come (but not quite yet)

Ready for the new year? Not just the obligatory slab of overpriced sashimi, the obligatory lucky soup that auntie makes you eat, the obligatory stash of illegal fireworks that will enrage legions of law-abiding, dog-owning, clean-air- loving people, but really ready, like ready for all the huge changes the new decade will bring?

In just 28 days a new decade will be upon us, even though it doesn’t feel that way at all. Change is not in the air. If there’s anything in the air, it’s just the eager-beaver pyromaniacs busting into their stash already.

When 1989 became 1990 it seemed like leg warmers and shoulder pads were tossed out or burned overnight. All the neon exuberance of pop music was pushed aside, and the era of earth tones, grunge music and the dark allure of the worldwide web began almost immediately. Americans went from gold-trimmed self-confidence to the dreary introspective noir of the ’90s almost overnight. People were ready for something different.

Between 1999 and 2000 there was, of course, great excitement for the new millennium. Even though the catastrophic crash of Y2K never came to be, there was a feeling of the ’90s being finished and a new era going forward. Something was ending, and something different was coming into place.

Ten years ago the transition into the new decade was just as indistinct and uninspired as this transition seems now. As people struggled over what to call the decade after the Aughts (and nobody called the 2000-2009 “the Aughts”), we slid into the Teens (and nobody called the years between 2010 and 2019 “the Teens”) with nothing but new versions of the iPhone to look forward to. Of course, these past 10 years did bring great changes, though we are still struggling to name the hallmarks of the decade: The Great Recession? The beginning of a divided America? The Emoji Era?

There’s even an argument that the new decade does not begin when the Gregorian calendar flips to a year ending in zero, but actually in the following year, as in 2001, 2011, 2021. Perhaps this is an attempt to stall the beginning of an era until something auspicious, stylish or interesting has a chance to happen.

So many things that have defined the past 10 years aren’t going to turn over with the calendar or fade away like a fad. They’re going to move right along with us into the future, like the war on drugs that is never won, the problems of over-tourism that the tourism industry ignores in its constant quest for more, the scourge of neighborhood crime that has turned from thug-vs.-thug to thugs preying on regular citizens.

But also, when a new decade starts, people take it as an auspicious time for personal change. It doesn’t seem like anybody is seeking to change themselves aside from lash extensions and a phone upgrade. Everybody is dug in and self- satisfied in their worldviews and personal values.

Not that things will never change. Of course they will. It just doesn’t feel like it right now.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.