Looking forward

Being born in 1980 makes the math easy. When I was a kid--this tiny little creature with a tendency to hide in corners or behind her mother's skirt--I could quickly calculate my age and imagine what kind of grownup I'd be. Wow, in the nineties I'll be a teenager, I'd thought. In the two-thousands I'll be in my twenties! (Ha, I remember wondering what they'd call these first years of the new millennium; they never really figured it out). And man, in the twenty-tens? I'll be in my thirties!

I didn't understand how to be a teenager, how to put on and take off different identities, seeing what fits; I hate looking back, seeing how unhappy and uncomfortable I was, and wishing I would have just relaxed. But the twenties? I learned to use a different measuring stick. I didn't have to compare myself to other people; rather, I had to determine the shape of my own life. Now it's the decade of my thirties, though ego forces me to note that I'm not, technically, in my thirties yet.

What will this decade bring? You know, it's scary and exciting having absolutely no idea. Fifteen years ago, and silly as it seems now, I couldn't imagine that there would be boys who like me. Ten years ago, I certainly wouldn't have envisioned myself teaching at a college or even working in a library. Five years ago, I didn't see myself returning to this idea of me as a writer. And exactly one year ago, after finally breaking free of a relationship I'd hung on to for far too long, I didn't anticipate what an exciting year 2009 would be, from weekly wine tastings to visiting other continents.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next.