I was lying in bed this morning, vaguely thinking of getting up (but dissuaded because I knew I was out of coffee), and I started thinking about the impending new decade. This is what I thought:
Ten years ago, my son was pubertal, just at the age I was when I had my first bout of severe depression and showing signs of the same himself. Since I and my mood disorder turned out just fine for some definition of "fine", I never expected he would end up disabled with schizoaffective disorder.
Ten years ago, Whatever He Was to Me and I had just officially broken up. I never expected that we would then continue to spend the next five and a half years still seeing each other, nor that it would take even longer than that for me to finally completely get over him.
Ten years ago, both my parents were still alive and healthy. Well, we'll just assume my mother was healthy, since she refused to ever go to a doctor until she had, y'know, cancer that had already probably metastasized. I never expected she would pre-decease my dad (being considerably younger) or by so many years.
Ten years ago, I was writing a lot and getting fiction published and really involved in a community of other writers. I never expected in 2010 I would be writing nothing other than a blog.
Ten years ago, I was into my [x] year of working the 7:30-4 M-F, go to bed and get up and do it all again grind. I never expected (but I dreamed!) that I would be able to support myself working fewer and more flexible hours, nor could I have predicted the path through which that came about.
The lesson to be learned here is, I guess, that life will take us where it will. Plans and goals and dreams are well and good, but despite them, we might end up somewhere totally different. And that "totally different" might be Just Fine. I don't know where or how I'll be in another ten years (except closer to death, ha!) but things will happen as they happen, and I'ma take my happiness as it comes and live in the moment.
Happy New Year.
xoxo
3 comments:
10 years ago...I was working in the ER as an LPN, had just gotten my first computer and discovered the wonders of the internet, was about to meet the first man I had sex with (yes, I was a very late bloomer) who would go on to become one of my best friends. My siter was still alive, albeit not living very healthy.My depression and anxiety were manageable-soon to become unmanagable though, 2000-2002 was not a good time for me in that regard.
I have come a long way. Yes, some losses, many gains, and I discovered I *can* do more than nursing.
Happy New Year to you too. :-) Namaste
Ten years ago this morning I watched an exhausted and disheveled Tom Brokaw admit that the Y2K "disaster story" was a complete bust. He then said, "I'm tired; I want to go home." He'd been up all night covering this non-story. In my career as a skeptic I've never enjoyed anything more. Ten years ago E was still in high school and was still applying to colleges. I was a writer and making a good living. The first hasn't changed, the second has. None of the personal revelations that have defined much of my life since had happened. The chronic illness that has defined much of the rest hadn't happened either. Change happens. Happy New Year.
Thanks for sharing *your* "ten years ago...", guys. :-)
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