I was thinking about how abrupt things change. I think of my life in terms of eras. Young childhood...up to about eleven or twelve is kind of one big era. Then comes the teens, the end of high school really felt like the end of the teens for me. And it just goes to show how we define time really doesn't make much of a difference. I know people who are well into their twenties and their lives aren't that much different than they were at seventeen. My life is quite a bit different that it was at seventeen. And I don't say that with a sense of pride. Its just a fact. (Although the people that have made my life quite a bit different are pretty cool... so maybe a little pride)
After the "teens", which really felt like they ended after high school, the eras become more niche. At some point after I'm a twenty something (if I make it out of the roaring twenties alive) I suppose I might be able to condense my life into "my twenties." I kind of hope not, though. I hope I can remember it more the way it was.
First I met Sarah. I started dating her in mid-July of 2005 and we had a magical summer. I mean that sounds cheesy as shit, but it was. We had absolutely no commitments (except for Sarah's curfew), and I had two thousand dollars. I didn't get a job until nearly November of that year. I had no desire for, and no way to pay for college, so I elected to "enter the workforce." That summer really lasted until about October...that's when things started to feel less magical and more like a loser-y teen with marriage ideals and no job. So from July-October was "the summer." We got engaged in January of 2006, so things really jump to "the engagement." Then we in '07 we became newlyweds. The honeymoon had to be creative but we had a lot of help and it was a great time. A little house on the beach, just Sarah and I with a couple grand in wedding money, and having a good time watching 'Disturbia' and 'A Goofy Movie' in the little house. Sleeping in the living room because the bedroom creeped the shit out of us.
Then there was the era of our first apartment, which was as beautiful and awesome as it was cheap. We got that in the fall of '09. We stayed there till shortly after Ava was born. We moved into the second apartment in the early months of 2011. The second apartment was really "Ava's first home." That's where a lot of memories were made (and posted on Facebook). Ava's first steps. First time Ava rolled over was when we were watching 'Aloha, Scooby Doo' on my brand-spanking new blu-ray in our living room. Lots of movie and Little Caesar's pizza nights with Sarah after Ava was in bed. The simple joys of eating awesomely bad food and binge watching 'How I Met Your Mother' after a highly stressful day of cooking at the 'Lion' and homework.
Then came my two Grand Mal seizures in January of 2013. And that brings me to my original point. The seizure came out of nowhere, I had NEVER had one before, or had any issues before. And suddenly my doctor told me I couldn't work at my job for six months. It was the time period to test and see if I would likely have more seizures or if it was an anomaly kind of thing. And so suddenly my job--which I'd held and loathed but was still appreciative to have at all--was gone. And...it was great. I had been missing SO much with my swing shift hours, in combination with college that it felt just like a season to mend, and to get well. To get in tune with the people in my life. I never went back to the job and wound up getting a new one (with much more flexible and generally life friendly hours) in about August of '13...same time as I started at WSU-V, newly armed with my AA from LCC. And that starts the era I'm currently in...the WSU era I guess. An era of humility (giving up our hard earned apartment in exchange for more time for living life and focusing on school and bettering our lives).
The original point was abrupt endings. Didn't really get there. But, the point was, our lives aren't really measured in years or decades or whatever. Things are really in eras. And you never know how quickly the era will end. I woke one day and my head went screwy and that gave me a way out of my dead-end job. It really just showed me the way that was already there but that I was too proud to see. This era will end at some point (hopefully with a decent paying job that my college degree got me) but who knows when. But its a really good one, with second chances and everything. So I'm not in a hurry.
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