Timeline

Over the past few months I've been thinking a lot about the future and what it has in store for us. I'm trying to sift through all the possibilities in order to plan for the way I think things are probably going to go. It's a difficult challenge, especially when concidering the fact that many things up until now have not gone the way I expected. It's interesting to look back and see what I was thinking.

A year ago I was living with my girlfriend and thinking very seriously about asking her to marry me. That was terrifying but I couldn't think of any circumstance that would make me want to be with anyone else. As it turns out I made the right decision in this instance. Two weeks from today is our six month anniversary.

Two years ago I was a few weeks into my last year of school. I had no idea what I was going to do after that and I was spending most of my time among friends at a house that could only be called a hippy commune. It's name was Kingston and by itself has many a good story to go along with it. I had no job at this point, I had broken up with my future wife six or so months previously, and I was accomplishing very little in the way of progress. However, this was a time in my life that did me a lot of good. I learned what it would be like to live on very little money, I learned a lot about composting and gardening (we had both in the backyard), I made friends with two dogs named Hendrix and Pappy, I read a lot, bought a great many books from the used bookstore, and spent many an early spring evening sitting on the front porch drinking coffee and talking about everything we could think of. It was a good time, but I still hadn't gotten over the girl.

Three years ago I was living in a trailer with my best friend's girlfriend, I was not in school, I had just ended a two year relationship with a girl in California, I was working at a restaurant and a grocery store, and I was about two weeks away from going on my first date with my wife-to-be. That last part I had no clue about and it was definately not part of the plan. Lucky for me my plans hold very little sway over the way things actually work. Oh, I was also planning on spending a month or so that summer backpacking around Europe with my brother and my cousin. I had the plane ticket. What I couldn't get together was the rest of the money thanks to ongoing car issues. This would be the first of many trips to Europe that would fall through between then and now. Right now we're planning on going next summer. The issue is no longer the money, but the time.

Four years ago, roughly, I was driving down 82nd street in my Mercury Grand Marquis. It was a wonderful car, it was a beautiful clear morning, and I was the only car on the road for at least half a mile in either direction. I guess I was also not paying attention because an Oldsmobile Alero, a car that should have bounced off of mine like a plastic toy, decided to turn left off of a side street and that the best way to do it would be to cross a few lanes of traffic and ram into the side of mine. I think the theory was to use the force of impact to complete the turn and propel itself for a few miles without the accelerator, thus saving gas. Well, that car being as small as it is, it did in fact bounce of of mine. Pieces of it went everywhere, I think the engine evaporated, and all that was left was the shell of protection around the driver. Good engineering, lucky girl. The unlucky part was that the Alero was designed specifically, I think, to take on cars like the Grand Marquis. It's nose was shaped in such a way that when aimed at the side of one of these monsters it could pull a sort of suicide run, dig it's nose into the frame of that beast and let the beast's forward momentum bend that frame from nose to tail. So far as I can tell the best way to total one of the huge cars is to bend the frame. Mine was totalled. So was hers, but hers never had a chance. The point of all this being that it was the start car troubles that dramatically shaped my life for the next 4 years.

Five years ago, I dunno. Who can remember five years ago? Life was simpler then, I know that. I can't remember anything specific. Luke may have been in Spain, or California, I don't think he'd made in to Virginia yet. It was all good fun. It was easy. I had no troubles and plenty of extra money. It was also probably much less interesting. That may be why I can remember nothing specific. Ah well. The moral of this story is that even though you make lots of plans, or even if you make none, life seems to make its own. Things always seem to work out. Sometimes it's fun to look back. Look for stories about Kingston and the Hippy Life in a future installment. Maybe Soon!!