Years ago

I'm copying the idea for this blogpost from NFAH. She wrote about changes in her life in the last 10 years. I went a little further back than that.

20 years ago . . .

10 years ago . . .

Now . . .

I couldn't imagine being a parent, even though many of my contemporaries were already
I was a mother of a four-month old and was just beginning to sink into post-natal depression that was partially resolved by returning to work
I am the mother of two highly articulate, demanding, and gorgeous children

I commuted 10 miles a day
I commuted 130+ miles a day
I commute 40 miles a day

I was in the best shape of my life and had my cholesterol under control without the help of medication
I was overweight and had high cholesterol
I am still overweight but my cholesterol is back under control with the help of medication

I wore contact lenses most of the time, and rarely wore my glasses
I wore contact lenses much of the time, and sometimes wore my glasses
I wear glasses most of the time because even when I wear my contact lenses I still need to wear reading glasses

I had no grey hair
I was beginning to go grey but could hide it with the right hairstyle
I am most definitely grey-haired!

I was a UK citizen working in the US on a J-1 (exchange-visitor) visa and had no idea whether I'd still be in the US by the end of the year
I was a UK citizen waiting for my US citizenship interview with the INS, unable to vote either in the US or the UK.
I am a dual-national, citizen of both the US and the UK, able to vote here in the US but not in the UK

I was looking forward to a busy year of travelling - a trip to Canada in February and Florida in March, the UK in early summer, followed a trip to Taiwan
I was looking forward to a trip to the UK once I had my new US passport
I am again waiting for a new US passport and hoping to get to the UK for the first time in several years within the next year

I lived in a work-provided 1 bedroom apartment
I lived in a 2 bedroom house with my husband, with only his name on the mortgage as he bought it just before we got married
I live in a 4 bedroom house with both my name and my husband's on the mortgage

I had colleagues who used Apple IIe computers and Macs
I had a Mac and dial-up access via (I think) a 4800 baud modem to the internet at home (but by August of 2000 we had 52k dial-up with wireless access - ooh!) and broadband access from the Mac on my desk at work. Some sites were too slow to load from home so I only ever visited them at work, or I surfed at home with images off
I have a work-provided Mac laptop, and wireless broadband access to the internet at work and at home, but my access at work is filtered, so there are some sites I can only access from home

I didn't know anyone who had a cell-phone
I couldn't imagine a time when I wouldn't want a telephone land-line as we had such bad cell-phone coverage at home
Would love to cancel the telephone landline but we still have terrible cell-phone service at home

I was teaching the main subject I had trained for years to teach and loving it
I was teaching a subject I had no formal qualifications to teach and loving it
I teach the second subject I'm qualified to teach and finding it harder than the one I had no qualifications for!

I had never been online (although a year later we had an email system at work that only a few of us used - access was via a 300 baud modem!)
I had some online friends who I'd never met in person
I still have some of those same online friends and have still never met them, and have made the acquaintance of many more in the meantime

I didn't know that the man I was destined to marry only lived a few miles away but I wouldn't meet him for another five years, after I had moved to a different part of the state
I thought I was married to the most wonderful man ever
I know I am married to the most wonderful man ever

They say time flies . . .

. . . when you're having fun. So I must be having lots of fun then! It is really hard to believe that I've been in the United States for almost 23 years now. TWENTY THREE YEARS? When did that happen?!!

I came here planning on spending 2 years here and then returning to the UK. Then I discovered that unless I paid out of my own pocket to take summer classes somewhere, there was no way I could graduate in less than 5 semesters. (This despite the fact that one semester I overloaded on credits and took far more classes than was recommended. Hah! I passed them all!) So I took some extra classes just because I wanted to (beginning Spanish, skiing, aerobics), and took 6 semesters (3 years) to finish my degree. That 6th semester I met someone who helped me find a job, with work permission, for the following fall. I deliberately turned all the paperwork for graduation in late so that I couldn't graduate in the spring, which meant that officially I was still a student and was able to work on campus over the summer. (Sneaky huh?! I had a good foreign student advisor, though of course his advice about delaying graduation was strictly off the record!) The short-term job I'd found finished in March, and I returned to the UK. I spent several months fruitlessly job-hunting, but then got two job offers back in the US and came back here.

It wasn't until I'd been here for ten years, and already had my green card, that I met DH. Since then, time has just flown by! Last weekend was our twelfth wedding anniversary. I cannot imagine my life now without him or my children. But I'm having a hard time believing I've been married twelve years already! When did that happen?!! Not only have I now lived in the US for longer than I've lived anywhere else, but I've spent more of my time in the US married to DH than not. And yet I'm still only almost American . . .

Does my butt . . .

DH walked into the room and asked, "Does my butt look flat in these jeans?"