The End of an Era...Goodbye 2000's

or at least the first ten years of them.

Ten years ago this evening, I was lying on the couch in my tiny little attic apartment in Nashua, New Hampshire, rocking a raging fever and watching the New Year ring in on my television, all over the world. It was, of course, the turn of the millenium, so the media was all over it, covering midnight striking in remote little islands of the Pacific as well as Sydney, Tokyo, Paris, London and then on to the Unites States. I was awake from Kiribati to Honolulu (that's almost 24 hours, folks) and whenever I wasn't woozy from the fever, or waiting for "breaking news" to bust into my 24-hour New Years Day coverage with a report that Y2K was in fact real and that I was shit out of luck because I'd not been stockpiling canned beans for the past three years, I was pondering what the next ten years held for me.

And so here I am. Ten years later. And three time zones and 3000 away from where I was that night. I didn't even realize it at the time, but in only seven months from that moment, I would hop in my car with two cats, an air conditioner, a TV and a great friend and drive away from home for good, on my way to Washington, DC. I moved in with another great friend and her fiance (and some other tool of a room mate who lurked in the basement of the house and moved out shortly after I moved in. I couldn't tell you his name now or pick him out of a line up if my life depended on it). I started teaching at a school I would grow to both adore and loathe. Meaning, I wanted so badly to succeed there and be respected by my peers that I gave myself a big giant ulcer.

The best thing about working at that school (aside from the fact that I was too busy trying to stay afloat that I forgot to eat and lost almost 30lbs in 3 months?!) was that I met Husband through a friend I made at work.

Dating another guy at the time (and I use the term "dating" very loosely--remember when you were in 8th grade and some guy's friend came up and asked you if you liked "Bob". And when you said, "sure," he said, "yeah, but do you like him, like him, or just like him?" It was kind of like that. Only with sex.), I took up a friend's invitation to go hang out a bar with her, her fiance and a bunch of their friends. It was clear to me that things weren't going anywhere with the current guy (and let me be clear that he is a great guy and still a friend and has made a fantastic husband for another girl). So I went to the bar. And there was Husband, amongst the group of friends I'd been invited to meet. The rest, as they say when they can't think of anything wittier, is history.

I won't delve into the details of Husband's and my relationship because really interwebs, it's not a whole lot of your business. But suffice it to say, meeting Husband at the tail-end of 2000 was the turning point of my life and something I never would have imagined as I lay on that couch, eleven months earlier, slurping down a bowl of Mom's chicken soup and wishing I had a crystal ball.

Just a little past the midway point of the decade, Husband and I got hitched.

And what should have been 10.5 months later, turned into 9 months later, this guy arrived:

and our lives have changed 100%. And now that little baby is this little boy:

The passage of time, when you are dealing with a child who grows and changes every. single. day is an entirely different thing than it is to a woman lying on her couch wondering when her life will start.

Because that is how I felt back then, watching people all over the world on my television, ringing in the year 2000. (Yes, I absolutely know how incredibly un-empowered that sounds, but the 90's? Kind of blew for me). I could never have guessed that in only a few short months, events would transpire that would set me on this very course, and for that I am so grateful. For all the complaining I do about potty training or infertility, I am so very grateful.

I can only imagine what the 10's have in store for me. Looking back at how quickly the 00's went, I hope I remember to savor every moment of it (except for the ones, maybe in these next few months, when the child decides to poop his pants. I don't have to savor those moments, right?)