In general, this was a good decade for me. For a couple of years, I was at the healthiest weight and shape that I had been since my early twenties. Sadly, I'm almost exactly back where I started, if a little more conscious of my health. I also seem to have come to better terms with who I am as a person. It was soon after I turned 40 that I decided that I was in the correct profession after all and decided to really embrace the concept of being a teacher. I know that might sound a little weird, but until then I had thought of teaching as something that I was doing until I figured out what I was going to do with my life. It's been a nice decade of not fighting myself about who I am.
That's not to say that there haven't been significant changes in the direction of my life these past ten years. For one, I finally stopped just thinking about moving back to Alaska and actually made the move. In doing so, I quickly found that there was a definite place for me here, certainly there has been a deep sense of belonging. Just having snow on my birthday feels right to me. I also self-published a novel, wrote a dissertation, earned my doctorate, and became a grandfather (not in that order).
I've had one other significant achievement of sorts: this blog. My entire life, I've had a desire to record the thoughts and events from my day to day experiences. I began writing this blog sporadically over a dozen years ago (I had been occasionally writing on LiveJournal for a decade or so before then), but it was during my forties that I made the conscious effort to write a unique post every (or almost every) day. I hit the ten year mark in just over two months.
My forties have been a great decade of my life--in many ways the best one so far. I'm looking forward to what my fifties will bring.