*30* Year Meme -- Because I Can!

30 Years Ago I was in 7th grade, embarking on what was to be one of the best years of my life. This was the year of Star Wars, The Hardy Boys, the beginning of The Journeys, creating my secret code, and falling in love with CP, a senior in high school, my first great courtly love experience. I had read Enchantress from the Stars the previous spring, and had started devouring science fiction. My life revolved around my church, where I was in the bell choir, met before school on Wednesdays for Prayer Cell, and attending youth group on Wednesday night. I was caught up in passions of all sorts, with my first heartbreaks and hard wisdom yet before me.

25 Years Ago I was starting my senior year of high school, caught up in the college application process, my social life centering around The Golden Horde. I'd loved and broken up with my first boyfriend and was now dating his best friend. I was first chair in the band and my fight to keep it would cost me a best girlfriend for the second time. My boyfriend and I were debate partners and used "working on debate" as an excuse to spend long hours alone in his basement not working on debate -- and still managed to mow down most of the local competition. I was focused on graduating and getting out of town, not realizing that beneath the dreams and ambition was a lot of fear.

20 Years Ago I was starting my senior year of college (there had been a one-year leave after my freshman year). I was working on my thesis and felt that finally I had come into my own. I was respected as a stage manager, and had a nice sized circle of friends. This was after my existential crisis and I was still wrestling with the Void. In the spring, I would discover the Goddess and my spiritual life would be transformed yet again.

15 Years Ago I had been married for barely three months, and with my husband's support I had moved from a full-time to a part-time job and was taking religion classes at the U to prepare for applying for their MA program in Comparative Religion. We had bought a house together, where our gaming group would meet a couple of times a month. I wasn't comfortable in that neighborhood, however, so when he traveled on business, The Welshman would come over and spend the night (in the living room) as "Watch Beast." After so many years of living on my own, I hated being afraid of sleeping alone in the house. Gaming was my big passion, and I was deeply caught up in our stories, especially the Star Wars and Traveller story arcs.

10 Years Ago My daughter is almost two years old, and I've survived pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum depression. Thanks to the unfailing support of my parents (particularly my mother) in the area of childcare, I've returned to my MA program. I'm still gaming with my group, and the roleplaying helps me compensate for the ongoing struggle of being a mother when that was never part of my dreams.

5 Years Ago It's one year after the rocket company closed down. My now-ex husband and I are buying the duplex. I'm either working on a new entrepreneurial venture with my old rocket company boss, or have left that to get a job that doesn't have to be paid out of his own paycheck. It's the beginning of a time of struggle: my daughter is still very young, I'm struggling to find a steady job, and in a little while I'll discover that my basement leaks. I've not yet discovered my sense of vocation, don't yet know "what I want to be when I grow up." The gaming group has imploded, although I continue to meet with Hob and the Welshman as we try to recover what was best from the previous years and learn from our mistakes. This is also during the time that I was active in the Swedenborgian church and am basking in that community.

1 Year Ago L&L have just moved to town. I'm constantly surrounded by love and passion. Jeannie, the boss who I adored, has left the company so I'm reporting to an empty office. JW, my interim manager, is a great guy whose coaching pushes me to the first significant development I've done on the job in quite some time.

So Far This Year I opened the year with a series of posts on "Closed Issues" -- all of which, by the way, seem to be remaining truly closed. By June, both my partners were gone: one to death, and one to the transitions of life. I have a new boss who's just as wonderful as Jeannie and even more committed to my career development. I have hopes of finally getting a new position. I've moved out of The Basement into a beautiful townhouse. My daughter is marking her own growing-up transitions, which I've been observing (and trying to support) with a certain sense of awe.

Yesterday kateri_thinks and her Girlfriend came over, and they and my daughter and I went to the Lodge's movie room and watched Pirates of the Caribbean on the big screen while relaxing in upholstered recliners. I took the Daughter to her father's house so she can spend the rest of the the weekend with him, went grocery shopping, and tried to figure out what to do about my desk being too big for the space where I want it to go.

Tomorrow I go back to work, with a focus on trying to get my big project back under control.

Rain

After stressing out during the winter rains for the past several years of basement living, I now love lying on my bed at night and looking out my second story window at the rain falling on the turquoise swimming pool.