i've been away from home for ten years now. i was reminded of this when i got a myspace email two weeks ago from someone i barely remember from high school saying that our 10 year reunion is this summer. it's insane to think that it was ten years ago that i graduated high school, left the house that i grew up in, moved across the country and married a guy who was twelve years older than me. i was seventeen and completely naive. hoping upon hope that the lives that i saw people living in movies was the type of life that i was about to have after finding the "love of my life" and moving out to california. a romantic comedy with interestingly quirky characters and a happy ending.
bullshit. it wasn't. but it wasn't awful either. one divorce, eleven cities, more jobs than i care to mention, and dozens of friends and acquaintances later i'm now almost twenty-eight years old and already looking back on my life as though i'm an "adult". oh man, i AM an adult. how did this happen? it's arrived so surprisingly, without warning. ten years. damn. i mean, a ten year reunion was always something that you'd hear about on tv, or your uncle talking about going to. and now it's here. for me to RSVP to. yikes. i feel old.
that's life though. years go by and they add up, eventually making groups of ten or twelve or fifty. groups of years to look back on and say, "wow, has it really been that long?" yes, it has. but that's a good thing. that's what makes us the us we are today. and the us that we are today will be just a piece of the us we'll be ten years from now.
i'm a grown up now. the ten year reunion made me see that. but i'm still gonna like disneyland and candy. and i'm still gonna laugh at farts. time can't take those things away from me.
- Bethany James Leigh Shady
- Novelist, children's book author, freelance writer, and lover of the Shire.
4 comments:
Glad to see a new post on your blog :) I remember being startled on my 25th birthday when I realized I was closer to 30 than I was to high school. And high school sure doesn't seem THAT long ago! It'll be 10 years this summer since my first trip away from North America (that's one way I mark the passing of time) and 8 since my high school graduation. Congrats on making it to the 10-year mark.
And time goes even faster the older you get. Soon you'll understand what Einstein meant when he said, "Time is relative." (If you don't, just ask me and I'll explain!)
It's coming up on 14 years since my graduation -- I'm 31. Time moves much too quickly for my taste.
And the other night I was watching House Hunters, and there was this college kid and his father looking for apartments -- and all I could think was, "Wow, his dad is HOT."
I've never felt so old until that moment.
You know what makes you feel grown up and old the fastest? Kids. My oldest son Zack is going to be 18 this December and graduating from the same high school I did.
I was all WTF??? When the hell did that happen??? I still feel like I am 18 and I am going to be 39 this summer? It sucks when you can actually look back 20YEARS!!!
lol Oh well...isnt 30 the new 20 and 40 the new 30 so 20 is the new 10 and 28 is the new 17...so your doing alright.
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