My Life So Far

Meme stolen from Gigi.

20 Years Ago, I...
...was about seven years old and had a first grade teacher who didn’t believe in giving us pencils with erasers. He made us circle all of our mistakes. It made every single one of those mistakes stand out: a hideous failure. I also had a passionate desire for a pony.

15 Years Ago, I...
...wrote my first book, which was more of an epic novella about an evil queen who was thwarted by a jester and a scullery maid. I was mooning over a blond boy. I decided I wanted to be a writer.

10 Years Ago, I...
...was living in Bellingham, WA with my high school boyfriend. He asked me to marry him. Twice. I was torn up over the whole thing, too terrified to end it, but feeling that terrible feeling you get when someone asks for the rest of your life and you know that saying yes would be the worst mistake of your life.

5 Years Ago, I...
...started graduate school at the University of Natal in Durban, South Africa. Learned a hard lesson about love. Lived with a lot of cockroaches. Drank a lot of red wine.

2 Years Ago, I...
...started dating again for the first time since high school. It ended badly and spectacularly, but it meant I spent some time every month for a year in New York City. It was enough time to know I never want to live there.

1 Year Ago, I...
...was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, dated and broke up with and lost my best friend, and was laid off from my first real job, plunging me into what I considered, at the time, to be a staggering amount of debt.

So far this year, I've...
...moved to Ohio, got dumped by my distance boyfriend, been to Spain and Switzerland, gotten something very close to my ideal job. Every day is a fucking adventure.

Yesterday, I...
...biked to The Greene to buy new pants and discovered that – for the first time since getting sick last year – I’ve actually dropped a clothing size, and I’m back at a comfortable weight for me. I no longer feel like something is broken.

Today, I...
...am spending time at the day job reviewing documents, working on my next novel, and continuing the process of working to overcome my insecurities. It’s going to be worth it.

Tomorrow, I'll...
...go kick some ass at my martial arts school, cause my podiatrist has cleared me for kickboxing again. Man, I’m going to be fucking scary at 30.

Can’t wait.