A Year of Milestones

When I think of my life in ten year chunks, it makes me feel insanely old, especially because, looking back, 2000 was a big year for me, and it doesn’t feel far enough to be ten years in the distance. So here I’ll recount for you some of the milestones that happened for me that year:

Ten years ago I. . . graduated college. Exactly ten years ago from now, I believe I was just starting my final semester of my senior year which was a pretty easy one, if I recall. I think I only took three courses and one was a fiction workshop and one was my honor’s thesis credits. I can’t remember what the third one was, but it might have been a women’s studies class that focused on women writers. This was the life, I’ll tell you! In addition to these three classes, my only other responsibility was a job I had tutoring at the campus writing center!

Ten years ago I. . . got married. We got married in the summer, so it hasn’t been exactly ten years yet, but almost. This time ten years ago I was in wedding planning hell, which included a bunch of family fights whenever my now-husband and I would attempt to coordinate things with both families and/or do something “simple” like decide where people were sitting during the reception. Ten years later we both still concur that if we had to do it all over again, clearly an elopement would’ve been the wiser and more fun choice.

Ten years ago I . . . moved across the country. Also, this happened in the summer, so it hasn’t been exactly ten years. This time, ten years ago, I was weighing my graduate school acceptances and trying to decide where to go. I ended up picking Arizona because they also offered me a teaching position, and so my husband reluctantly agreed it was my best choice. Neither one of us were big fans of Arizona when we first came to visit, and we swore we’d only be here for two years, tops. Ten years later, and we are still here. What can I say? It grew on us!

Ten years ago I. . .hadn’t ever written anything longer than a short story, and I was working on a small collection of them for my honor’s thesis. My writing goal was to go to graduate school, write more stories, get some published in journals, and then get a story collection published. (I never did any of this, by the way, as I would soon discover that I liked writing novels much better.)

Ten years ago. . .my only “child” was one mildly overweight two year old grey tabby. Today, he is one of four cat children, mildly obese, and prone to some senior moments. (Also, he’s very frightened of the two human children in the house!)

It was a big year, a milestone year. I think I spent a good portion of it stressed (Graduating college, moving across the country, and getting married all at once will do that to a person), but I also spent a good porton of it elated, excited for the future, feeling as if my life were just about to begin.

So what about you? What were you doing ten years ago?