WHAT THE WHAT?!?
Cindy Maddera
26 Likes, 1 Comments - Cindy Maddera (@elephant_soap) on Instagram: "2009 and 2019. A lot happened in the years in between."
I just read a headline in the New York Times that said “The Decade is Over. What the Heck Just Happened?” and I almost yelled out loud '“Yeah! What the heck did just happen?!?” Now I understand why everyone’s doing that 10 year photo challenge. I did it too, but I didn’t now why I was doing it. I confess to being a bit of a ding bat on occasion. I mean, just this last Saturday there was a planned power outage at the Institute and I still tried to get into the building to scavenge for boxes. You must scan your badge to unlock the doors, so yeah…I can be a ding bat. But ten freakin’ years has gone buy! 10! I packed a lot of life events into ten years.
That picture of me with the s’more was taken in August of 2009. Chris and I were camping at Alabaster Caverns and that might have been the same camping trip where my Mom lost her cat. And yes, that is a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup on my s’more. I think I had just started growing my hair out. It was one of my Life List things to grow my hair long and cut it off for charity. I remember looking at this picture and thinking I looked skinny. I mean, just look at that collar bone! I was at least five or six pounds heavier than I am now. This was the same year we traveled to Lake Charles to visit Tiffany, Tom and Allison, who was still a baby. Now she’s a tween and more grown-up than her parents. I finished my yoga teacher training that year and was teaching yoga classes every day, sometimes twice a day. I had just moved to a new lab that was not as fun as Margaret’s lab, but I tolerated the job. We lived with Chris’s mom, something else I tolerated. I was oblivious to the amount of changes that would happen in the next ten years.
The following is a list of things that happened between 2009 and now:
Chris and I talked about buying a house in Misti’s old neighborhood
Chris wrecked his scooter and broke two ribs
I got a new job
We moved
We bought a lawnmower and then we bought house
Chris got sick
Chris died
I painted the living room
Hooper died
I went on some ‘interesting’ dates
I met Michael
My Dad had to be put into an institution
Mom and I went to Ireland
Michael moved in
We took the Cabbage to the Gulf and nearly lost her in the ocean
We moved my mom out of the house I grew up in
Dad died
Michael and I nearly froze to death in Wisconsin in July
Michael and I bought a camper
I’ve done some traveling. We’ve done some traveling. Chris has done some traveling
We’ve celebrated friends as they go off to new adventures
Laughter, tears and joy have filled the spaces in between.
The word ‘decade’ sounds like a long time. Ten years. Three thousand six hundred and fifty days. I had to scroll back in time through my Flickr photo feed to find that picture. It was time traveling. As I scrolled through all of the pictures of vacations, scooter rides, charity walks, birthday parties and general silliness it all felt like stuff that happened minutes ago. Not years ago. How is it possible to pack so much living into such a short amount of time?
Because ten years really is a blink.