25 years ago: I was just a few months old. I lived with my mom. I don't remember it.
20 years ago: I was 5. I really liked to read. I was excited about starting school (first grade--I didn't go to kindergarten). My mom and my stepdad had been married for a couple of years. I was about to get a baby brother in March and had mixed feelings about it.
15 Years ago: I was 10. I was in 5th grade. My mom's friend Barb was my teacher. It was hard to call her Miss X in class, rather than Barb. I was skinny, smart, and obnoxious. I don't think I had very many friends. I had started "sexually experimenting" with girls, or with M., anyway.
10 Years ago: I was 15. I was in 10th grade. My heart had been broken the year before by a guy that I retrospectively find very creepy. This resulted in an episode of binge drinking that I am very lucky didn't kill me. I was playing better volleyball than I'd ever played before or since, and actually kind of enjoying it. I hated my parents. In the spring, I'd find a new love that was even worse than the old one and lose my heterosexual virginity in one of the world's most embarrassing and anti-climactic events. I was taking diet pills and whatever other pills I could get my hands on for recreation, and discovering the wonders of marijuana.
5 years ago: I was 20. It was the first semester of my third year of college, and I was working my ass off, harder than I've worked before or since, and getting straight A's in some damn difficult courses. I was drinking occaisonally and heavily, living with S. in a horrible apartment with a meth-addicted and abusive next door neighbor, the infamous Arg Fuck. I wrote my epic "'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving" poem, which I really wish I still had a copy of. Later in the spring I'd find out about S.'s, cheating, stay with him for another six months anyway, fall in love with Mark, and generally lose an semblance of self respect. But my grades would stay good.
3 years ago: I was 22. It was my first year out of college. Mark had just moved to back to Portland. I was behaving in a horrible way to my housemates, N. and J., and they were damn sick of me. Mark lived with us for like 4 months without paying rent. We lived in the house with the bizarre old landlord living downstairs in his hovel and coming in to our house when we weren't home. The entire living situation was taking a turn for the worst. I was working at the art museum, where I met great people, made no money, and learned to despise the world of art.
1 year ago: I was 24. Mark and I had our first Thanksgiving at home, just the two of us. We (OK, mostly Mark, but I made a pie) cooked for two days and then ate for hours. We made Chance a plate of all of the food and let him eat it with us. I looked around and realized that this is my family now, and was happy. I was in my first semester at LBJ, hated it, and knew almost immediately that I made the wrong decision about grad school. I was working at TCFC, still liking the work at that time, and hoping to become friends with S.
This year: I am 25. My darling Scand and her hubby are coming to join us for Thanksgiving. I am taking a year off school and have a well-paid and non-stressful job. I'm realizing that maybe that's all I need, maybe careers are for other people. I'm toying with the ideas of buying a house, getting married, having babies, then rejecting them one by one. I'm generally happy with my lot.
Yesterday: I have a cold. I'm working, cleaning up my post-flood house, and getting ready for Thanksgiving. Mark and I go to Happy Hour at Chili's with some of my coworkers. Chili's has really bad drinks.
Today: I'm working half a day, then going home and crashing out, trying to feel less like my head is full of wool. After the nap, I have to start getting the house back in order. It's an embarrassment.
Tomorrow: Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Mark and I will be cooking and watching football, since we aren't having our actual celebration until Scand and B. get here on Friday. Hopefully it will be more relaxing than stressful.
Meme from Frog.