In Which I Think Back On The Last Decade

So today is the last day of the decade.

What a crazy, crazy ride.

Let's review, shall we?

In the year 2000, I was a senior in high school. There's me all ready for prom-- wasn't I ridiculously fresh-faced and cute? I planned to join the military after college, travel the world, and not marry or have any children until I was at least thirty and had a doctorate degree. We can all see how well that worked out.


Now ten years later I've been married for five and a half years, been a mother for three and a half, still haven't started my masters but have received a BA in English and a stellar education in extremely rare medical conditions, and have performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation over thirty times. I've been to Ireland, England, Canada, Mexico and Belize-- a sad total of one new country every two years. I've attended twelve weddings and eight funerals, moved five times, and owned three cars and one house. I've read over three thousand books and been published twice. I've seen the interior of my husband's left calf and the adrenal gland of my son. I learned how to do needlepoint and sign language (though not at the same time). I adopted two cats, one frog, one snake, and one enormous tarantula.

Jeremy in 2000 planned to join the Marine Corps and was waiting to see if he'd be accepted to college or if he would enlist straight out of high school. In ten years he expected to be an infantry enlisted man or officer (still in the Marine Corps), unmarried, and that was about the extent of his planning. You can see that worked out pretty well for him, too.

He graduated from high school, got married, commissioned into the army, became a father (Jeremy says he impregnated a woman but this is my blog so I get to say it how I want to), moved, got promoted twice, deployed, got half-blown up, came home a bit worse for wear, and learned how much fun it is to drive a wheelchair down a grocery store aisle at high speeds. He has been to Canada, Mexico, Belize, Iceland, Germany, Kyrgyzstan, and Afghanistan and has been admitted to six hospitals. He's had eight surgeries and broken five bones. He's played over 7,000 hours of World of Warcraft (which is kind of scary but probably less than the amount of time I've spent reading books), owned three cars, and consumed about twenty alcoholic beverages.

Connor spent the first six and a half years of the decade as a twinkle in God's eye. Then he rapidly made up for lost time. In the past three and a half years he's had four major surgeries, five stints in the ICU, two months of in-patient time, over 200 doctor's appointments, and been admitted to five different hospitals. He's been under anesthesia seventeen times. He's learned fifty-eight signs, how to lift his head, sit on his own, eat solid food, and stand with help. He's graduated from early intervention and started preschool. He's owned zero cars and been to zero other countries. Glad to know someone is behind me on the amount of traveling they've done.

We don't really do New Year's resolutions around here. As Jeremy puts it: "Why would you wait until December 31st to make a resolution?" But I do have one wish for the next ten years. I hope it's sort of boring.

No really. I'd like to look back in ten years and write things like "I organized my Tupperware collection" and "I won an award for prize-winning petunias." I mean, I'm okay with a few exciting things happening, like Jer walking again and Connor walking for the first time and us adopting another kid and moving into our first non-rented domicile, but I'd rather skip the other drama that tends to follow us around. You know, drama that includes things like explosions, bleeding, people turning blue, emergency rooms-- the list goes on. With any luck we'll be able to look back on the first decade of the new millennium as our "wild twenties" and our thirties will be much more sedate.

I'm not placing any bets on it, though.



~Jess