This Decade

I started out this decade as a freshman in college. I remember over the holiday break for 99/00 I heard from one of my friends (still one of my friends) that he wouldn't be returning to college in the spring because he barely made grades enough for a GPA to be calculated. For whatever reason i remember sitting on my bed in my room in Danville, Kentucky thinking that him not being back at school in the spring would change the whole dynamic of college life. How would we all move on?

I remember contemplating whether i should try alcohol or not. Did that make me a bad person? I remember becoming involved in in Phi Mu and how no one had really figured out that i had a serious intellectual side yet because i was always a goof ball.

I remember one of my friends breaking up with his girlfriend back at home because they just couldn't stop the change that college brings. I remember him crying in my lap in my dorm room and me reading him this really sappy children's book trying to cheer him up.

I remember falling in love for the first time with a Canadian. And how happy and scary it was being in that situation. I remember being happy and not happy all in the same breath. I remember spending my holidays with him and his family in Canada and living in his little tiny room for several weeks during the summer and trying to figure out how to ride the bus since I didn't have a car.

I remember the friends that i made, kept, and lost during the last decade of my life. There are so few that started this decade with me and are still in that same spot at the end of it.

I recall moving from college to Canada to work full time on a temporary work visa. Having no friends and struggling with my decision to try and be "religious" again but not really understanding how to do that. Saving up to move to New Zealand - moving there with no job, no home, no transportation - just the idea that we would go to NZ and live for a year. I remember spending those 8 months struggling with my faith - reaching out to friends from back home that i hadn't talked to in way too long because they were my only connection to who i once was.

Those years were transformative years. The first 5 years of this past decade morphed me into a completely different person. The beginnings of an adult.

The last five years were me again struggling to figure out who i wanted to be. Being single again after not being single for so long and falling into love with the wrong person - again. Learning how to be mad and stay mad - how to know when it's time to move on. That's what i spent the next 3 years learning with both friendships and love.

And the last year has been about second chances, and being who i am regardless of how anyone else feels about it. Coming into my own. Being a prude when that's how i really feel - saying what i think like i used to when i was 16 and you said something i didn't like about God.

Again - wondering about my faith and talking to God, and remembering how to pray. Opening up to my sister and falling in love for the last time.

And now...2010, engaged. Living in a house where the discussion "could we have a family here" played a role in the selection. Starting a new job, well past my master's degree and starting new challenges like trying to be a fitness instructor.

I never would have guessed I'd be here. But it feels like the best version of my self in a long time, maybe ever. And we're not done yet.