In the year 2000, I was 16 and in love for the first time, with a boy named Bryan, who I’d been in love with the year before.  We lived three hours away from one another, but he’d visit often and we talked on the phone for hours.  In April, I turned 17.  I finished my junior year of high school and spent my summer tooling around in my 1987 Toyota Celica.  Man, I loved that car.  In July, I went to Tennessee with my high school church youth group for a conference and overdrew my checking account for the first time.  Bryan broke up with me during that trip, and I was destroyed.  I reconnected with the guy who’d taken me on my first date ever at age 15, and we started dating immediately.  It was serious.

In 2001, I turned 18 years old.  I saw my first Dave Matthews Band concert in San Francisco, a gift from my boyfriend.  I graduated from high school.  Two weeks later, I started both community college and working for Gap/Old Navy/Banana Republic as a Customer Service Representative for their call center.  I loved my new amazing discount, but hated my job.  I started attending a college youth group at a new church that I really enjoyed.  In October, I started losing weight and dropped 20 pounds almost immediately.  In December, one of the girls I went to high school and to church with was killed in a car accident.  It was the first time death was really close to me, and I was devastated.

By 2002, I had gotten used to the pattern of my friends being gone, coming home for weekends and summers.  I continued carrying a full load of classes in school and working nearly full-time.  I got thinner and thinner, and losing weight and working out became an addiction.  In October, my long-time boyfriend proposed and I said yes.

2003 was one of the happiest years of my life.  I was thin enough to wear a size 0 or clothes from the kids department.  My mom and I planned an awesome wedding.  I edited the Literary Journal at my college and acted as a professor’s assistant on a poetry retreat in Bodega Bay, California, with my favorite college professor.  I was actively involved in church, though I was beginning to have doubts and questions.  I started attending the four-year university nearby, where my favorite class was Philosophy in Literature.

In 2004, my then-fiance and several friends encouraged me to stop being so obsessed with working out and eating well, so I stopped and the weight crept back on.  I had my first panic attack while driving to school one morning.  I wrote more papers than I even thought possible, and fell in love with Fitzgerald, Hemingway and the 1920′s in general.  I got married, and cried nearly my entire honeymoon.  I missed my parents and brother terribly, even though I lived a mere five minutes from my childhood home.  I started getting deeply sad.  I started therapy after I couldn’t stop wanting to die.  I stopped going to church.  I took on a seasonal leadership position at work, and became close friends with Leslie.  I adopted Harry cat.  My marriage started crumbling before my eyes.  In December, I officially finished all the classes to complete my degree in English, but stayed on to take a Master’s-level class and hopefully begin my MA in Creative Writing.

In 2005, I floundered.  I hated my Creative Writing class.  I hated my job.  I quit my job after working for Gap’s call center for four years, and started working as a tutor full-time.  I hated it.  I taught a Children’s Creative Writing class and hated it.  Finally, at the end of May, I was hired to teach at an art center for developmentally disabled adults.  I loved my job, but hated my life.  I moved to Midtown Sacramento, and fell completely in love with the area.  I got even more sad.  My marriage consisted of screaming fights, ignoring one another and pretending that the other person didn’t exist.  I started painting for the first time.  I started my first blog.  I discovered Rumi.  I made new friends, who liked going out and having fun.  I simultaneously loved and loathed my life.

2006 was the worst year ever.  I hurt my friends with my absence and sadness and anger.  We announced our impending divorce.  My family was hurt and shocked and horrified by my decision, and it took months of working hard for us to finally understand one another.  I moved out on my own, to a tiny studio apartment that I absolutely adored.  I started dating again.  I fell in love immediately, with a sweet, gentle guy I worked with.  We drank our spring and summer away, ate too much McDonald’s and fell hopelessly, deeply in love.  I lost my job.  I started massage school and began working as a massage therapist in July.  I started a brief stint as a Starbucks barista as well, which I absolutely hated.  Massage picked up and I quit Starbucks.  My boyfriend broke up with me unexpectedly, leaving me shattered and frazzled both financially and emotionally.  I was poorer than I’d ever been in my life.  I started working at Borders for the holiday season.  I started dating a fellow artist, which ended terribly in an awful New Years Eve fight.

In 2007, I decided to get my life together.  I got hired on as a Teaching Assistant at a group home, a job I did while also balancing Borders and massage therapy.  I went on a series of awful dates, one of which was with B, someone who would complicate the next two years.  My relationship with my family improved dramatically.   I was accepted into a teaching credential program, which I started in July.  I moved out of my studio apartment and in with a girl who was very sweet, but had a serious marijuana problem, something that didn’t jive well with my new lifestyle.  B and I started dating and then stopped.  I was heartbroken.  I started my first year of teaching at the school I still teach at as a 7th grade English teacher, and fell head over heels in love with being an educator.  I moved out of my first apartment and in with another roommate into an apartment I loved.  I started feeling hopeful and confident again.  B and I started hanging out again, off and on, in November.  In December, I met Andrew and everything changed.

2008 was one of the most confusing, but fun years of my life.  Andrew and I started dating.  We struggled at first and I continued having B as a big part of my life.  I visited Seattle and Vegas in March and went to Coachella in April.  I saw a lot of concerts, went out nearly every weekend and had a blast living in downtown Sacramento.  In May, Andrew and I decided to stop seeing each other.  For a week.  We started flirting via Facebook Scrabble, and slowly began rebuilding our relationship.  In June, we decided to be serious and exclusive and haven’t looked back since.  I started my second year of teaching, this time as an 8th grade English teacher.  In October, Andrew told me he loved me for the first time.

I started 2009 in Illinois, hanging out with Andrew’s family for the first time.  In February, I was told I might lose my job thanks to the state budget crisis.  Andrew and I moved in together.  In March, I launched this site.  In April, I turned 26, found out I’d have a job this school year AND finished my credential program.  I spent my summer in my new apartment and in Illinois, visiting Andrew’s family.  I started my third year of teaching.  In August, my dad was diagnosed with cancer, and my grandma was hospitalized with E. Coli poisoning that caused her kidneys to fail.  The next few months were a whirlwind of stress and sadness.  In November, my grandma was released from the hospital and has continued to recover.  In December, my dad’s radiation treatments were cut short early because they believe the cancer is gone.  I ended the year in Illinois once again.

It’s amazing how much the past 10 years have held—both good and bad.  It’s been quite a decade.  Can’t wait to see where I am 10 years from now.

What did your 2000′s hold?

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