While watching a retrospective on the 2000s, I can't help myself but wonder where the time has gone. When the announcer talks about MIA's Kala and Radiohead's In Rainbows as decade defining classics, I cringe; not because they aren't amazing albums, but because I feel like they came out yesterday. Then again, it has been a few years since their respective release dates; and, whether I like to admit or not, the decade is coming to a close in a few weeks, and it is only going to get worse. As the next few weeks go by, we will be bombarded by "best of," "worst of," and "most defining" lists of the decade. Still, I feel like it's too soon. It’s not right. Personally, I am not ready to reminisce about Emo kids, shutter shades, Sham Wows, student protests, and long nights wasted at Foufs. In fact, I don't think I will ever be ready for those travesties, but I am not willing to look back on the good stuff neither. I am not ready to get all nostalgic over eye-opening trips to Europe, Peer Pressure block parties, roof top after parties, amazing dinner parties at my first apartment, Au Revoir Simone concerts, or meeting the Backstreet Boys. Ok, so maybe, that last one doesn't count. It is just that considering the 00's, as done, as a whole, makes me sad. No, actually, it makes me feel old. I grew up during the last decade. I went from a wide eyed fourteen year- old who dreamed of marrying Nick Carter and becoming an actress to the settled, yet undecided, twenty three year old woman that I am today. I am "Génération 2000" and I am not sure of what that means.
A lot has happened in the last ten years. I have had my share of drama just as the World has seen its share of tragedies: 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq, the Tsunami, Katrina, the ever growing threat of climate change, the recession... Yet, I still feel like it all happened yesterday. To look back on it all would be like conceding that it is over, but it is not. We are all still dealing with the consequences of the past. Climate change is ongoing, and its full effects aren’t even known yet. The wars are still waging... both globally and personally. I doubt that I have fully come to terms with my 00’ demons. For example, my grandfather died four years ago, but I have yet to grieve him. I still have panic attacks thinking about how abruptly he left this World. I still don’t know what I want to do with my life, and I am at the pivotal moment of choice, but really who knows... maybe I will become an actress as I dreamed of when I was a pre-teen. Or perhaps, my initial, revolting experience with politics will push me towards the political arena after all. Or maybe a song, a movie, a TV show, a piece of clothing, a picture, or sentence in a book, which I have already discovered, has pushed me in a certain direction, and I am not even aware it. Maybe, I have yet to have had that life defining moment.
My point is that we can’t create definite lists. Time is subjective. What is important to me today is different from what mattered a year ago, a month ago, or even a few days ago. We redefine our pasts every second of our lives. We can’t determine what will be classic today, because there is too much time for change, for revival even. Going back to music... did anybody really know, for sure, that the Beatles would be just as popular today as they were forty years ago? Or, maybe the question is rather: will they still be popular forty years from now? 
Will our kids look back at Radiohead the way that we look back at The Doors or Nirvana even? And with the speed and the quantity at which new music is released today, how can we really determined “the Classics”? Maybe, twenty years from now some kid will have discovered this obscure band with abysmal sales from the 00’s and make them the biggest success of the 2.20’s. Who knows? I certainly don’t. So what right do we have to make these claims about the temporal value of art? Really, all we can do is state what we think is good and worthy based on who we are in that given moment, and heck, that is different for every single one of us.
Will our kids look back at Radiohead the way that we look back at The Doors or Nirvana even? And with the speed and the quantity at which new music is released today, how can we really determined “the Classics”? Maybe, twenty years from now some kid will have discovered this obscure band with abysmal sales from the 00’s and make them the biggest success of the 2.20’s. Who knows? I certainly don’t. So what right do we have to make these claims about the temporal value of art? Really, all we can do is state what we think is good and worthy based on who we are in that given moment, and heck, that is different for every single one of us. 
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