Then and Now (22 vs 32)

Today's inspiration comes from Tabitha, who in turn stole her blog idea from someone else. Hey, spread the joy, right? The theme today is to compare yourself: then vs. now. They did 5 years. My life has been pretty steady and unchanging for the past 5 years, so I thought I'd expand it to 10 years.

Career-wise:
1999: by the end of it I was halfway through my active duty career in the U.S. Army. Despite the ungodly hours, I was actually enjoying the routine and the concreteness of my work. Unfortunately, all that uprooting isn't very conducive to a stable family life, so I knew this wasn't what I was going to do long term. I had started taking computer science classes at the University of Maryland, which has branches on larger Army bases throughout the world and had, at the time, the most extensive online course offerings of any other college. Why computer science? Because I was in the Signal Corps, which fits in perfectly with that area of study, and the majority of my colleagues had degrees in some engineering field.

2009: wrapping up my 2nd year at Citrix Online alongside hubby. Still pondering what I want to do for the rest of my life, because programming and software engineering can be fun for a while, I just cannot scrounge up real interest or passion for it-- I do my job and that's it, I go home and don't want to think about it until the next day. These days I'm miffed that my husband not only gets paid more than I do for doing less work, but he also *enjoys* it very much :-P So yeah, much like 1999, I'm still on the search path for a suitable career.

Socially:
1999: I was living in Germany and living it up. Making up for my sheltered existence up until then by really letting loose: bar-hopping till 3am, dating guys that were all wrong for me, and generally enjoying being thousands of miles away from family. I worked hard and played hard, and decadent Europe was the perfect playground.

2009: Total opposite. I think I've gotten all my partying and wild living out of my system, and when I returned to the States and went back to school, where I met and married my husband, I seemed to turn into an old fuddy-duddy overnight. Relatively speaking, anyway. I remember a few years ago, celebrating a friend's birthday. We hit a bar after dinner, and I was already yawning and yearning for my bed... at 10pm! I wasn't even 30! These days my life is one long routine, and I like it just fine. I like the stability and comfort of a daily routine, and always crave it when I'm gone from it too long.

Family:
1999: Just the 'rents. And my grandmother, who had been living with us since I was 8. Of course, I was living in Germany this year, so there really wasn't any family nearby to speak of. I was single and enjoying the single life to its fullest. I figured I'd wait till I was 30 to get married, and then wait a few years after that to have kids. That is, if I even wanted kids. I was still on the fence and wasn't sure I liked them or the idea of having them.

2009: Family's still small: me, hubby, the boy. There's still the 'rents, but they're only 100 miles away instead of thousands (or, for my entire life before going off to the military, a few YARDS away :-P) Life has a funny way of turning out: got married and started a family a little sooner than I expected, but it's actually working out better this way. I'm still young enough to be able to handle a rambunctious kid and by the time he's old enough to leave the nest, I'll still be young enough to enjoy it! As for more kids-- nah, just the one. That's it. No more. We made sure of that. And other (people's) kids? I still don't like them. Sounds kind of funny coming from a woman who has a child of her own, but honestly, it's very different when it's someone else's kids, and I just can't stand being around them. They're loud and messy and yucky and germy and possess entirely different personalities that I'm not sure I can address/handle. As antisocial as I am around adults, I'm even worse around kids. What do you DO with them!?!?

Spiritually:
1999: A practicing agnostic ;-) No, seriously-- I wasn't raised to believe anything, but I wasn't raised to disbelieve anything, either. Religion was more of an outside curiosity. I knew that there was something bigger than us out there, but didn't know what it was nor did I really care to research it or even just give it much thought. If I had any passing interest in the Bible or religion in general, it was more from an academic standpoint, like learning about new cultures. Not that I even had *that* sort of interest in it back then.

2009: I definitely do believe in God and in Jesus. I believe that the Bible *is* inerrant-- it's our fallible human interpretation that is full of error and ego. I believe in a just God who will judge fairly, despite what (decidedly human) fundamentalists insist on. Yet I still have lots and lots of questions. There are still things I don't profess to understand, and there is much with established Christian doctrine that I either don't get or outright disagree with. I believe faith and intellect are closely tied together, not mutually exclusive. And I'm always learning.

Hm, I think that about covers the major aspects of my life. Oh, save for one more: this last one comes at Allan's suggestion:

1999: Still innocently exploring, um, things.

2009: The woman who out-pervs her husband at nearly every turn, and on whom even raucous guys like Joe refuse to turn their backs.

O:-D