My Life: In 36 Sentences

Many of you know that I started this blog back in September of last year.  In January of this year, a group of individuals at WordPress (the company/technology that hosts this site and allows me [and hundreds of thousands of other people] to blog absolutely free of charge {which is amazingly cool of them, in my opinion}) started the “PostADay” challenge – which is basically an invitation for bloggers to post something on their respective spaces every single day. I had already been creating and publishing a daily post since the inception of this blog, so I didn’t feel that I needed an extra ‘push’ to continue doing so; but I loved the idea of community-building that becoming involved in a ‘challenge’ like this might afford, so I went ahead and ‘signed-up’ for the PostADay challenge.

To help keep writers motivated, the WordPress team posts a daily prompt that people can use as a source of inspiration.  I.e., if someone finds themselves staring at a blank screen, having no inkling of what to write, they can always pop over to the WordPress idea page and answer the question-of-the-day.

A few months ago one of the writing prompts offered was along the lines of “What topics do you want to see?” – i.e., a call for suggestions.  I offered a whole smattering of ideas; and today, one of them was chosen!  I feel really honored.  It was a delight to pull up the daily WordPress email, and to see my name included in it!

While I personally haven’t used any of the prompts before (as I am pretty clear on what I want the ‘mission’ of this blog to be, and therefore don’t need to have someone else direct my writing efforts), today I am going to answer the question-of-the-day – the question I submitted. (After all, it would be pretty tacky if I didn’t, right?)  🙂   So here we go:

Topic #238: Write a power sentence for every year of your life.  For each year you have been alive, write a single sentence about the most important thing that happened to you that year.

1975: I was born.  Yes, it’s an important fact; but what makes it even more meaningful is that I was born to two amazing, phenomenal parents.

1976: I learned how to walk.  I gained my first authentic sense of ‘independence’.  Talk about power.

1977: My sister was born – and my definition of ‘family’ was solidified.

1978: I learned to read – and my world BURST open wide.  Amazing possibilities suddenly existed, and abounded.

1979: I played with a variety of different children (nowadays society would call them ‘diverse’) – and I learned through first-hand experience that kids are just kids, that race and gender and native language and socio-economic status and all of that other stuff pretty much doesn’t matter.

1980: I attended all-day kindergarten – and I immediately fell in love with school.

1981: I won a year-long reading contest in my first grade class [I read 2,049 books over the course of the 9-month academic year]; and I saw exactly how knowledge can translate into power, prestige, and confidence.

1982: I was never taught how to complete multiplication problems (the woman in charge of running our classroom just expected us to ‘teach ourselves’), and I couldn’t figure out how to do them on my own – so I began believing that I was ‘stupid’ when it came to math.

1983: I was bused to an inner-city school, and learned what it was like to be in the minority population.

1984: I stood up to a bully, and learned that courage is really hard, and can make a person want to throw up – but it’s also pretty damn powerful.  But it’s really, really hard.

1985: I read Shakespeare for the first time ever (A Midsummer Night’s Dream); and saw that I was truly a natural when it came to understanding language.

1986: I had my first crush on a boy – and he didn’t like me back.  I began to learn that I was a fine friend, but not what boys desire in a girlfriend.  Sad.

1987: My dad ‘helped me’ with my 7^th grade science fair project (i.e., he did it while I watched) – and I learned that 1) my dad is a genius [which is literally true; I just hadn’t ever seen him in his deep cognitive element before, so it was kind of a shock for me to see him in his laboratory, more-than-proficiently using all of his high-tech gear…], and 2) that I was crap at science [which added to the whole I’m-bad-at-math notion that my mind held…].

1988: My first personal experience with the death of a fellow human.  She was 102, so she lived a fantastic life; but sometimes I didn’t want to make the weekly trip to see her.  However, when I learned of her passing, I got to see how much I missed those Sunday afternoon visits.

1989: I entered high school – and quickly learned that my ‘niche’ was going to be music.  (Playing the string bass.)

1990: Geometry with Mr. Catanzarite – who saw my intelligence beneath my insecurity, and who ever-so-gently led me to the place where my true potential resided, and introduced me to my real capabilities.  (My senior year of high school, I took Calculus from Mr. Cat – and got an A.  Goodbye ‘stupid-at-math’!)  🙂

1991: My first ‘real’ job (waitressing at a lower-end chain restaurant), where I saw that some people did this work for their actual living wages, not just for ‘spending money’.  I got to see how hard life can really be, and how incredibly lucky I was.

1992: I traveled to East Germany (among other places in Europe), and saw the still-present parallel strips of dirt amid grass where tanks had patrolled the Berlin Wall.  It was unfathomable to me how people could live under such constant oppression and fear.

1993: I graduated high school and entered college – and was both nervous and excited to see what higher education would be like.  Would I be able to handle it?

1994: I spent the summer on my college campus, helping orient incoming freshman to the school.  I had never worked so hard (13, 14, 15 hour days were standard), but I had also never had so much fun.  Ever.

1995: I declared a major – and immediately knew the decision didn’t mean a whole heck of a lot.  I pretended like I had a firm idea of what future careers I might want to pursue, but really, I didn’t have a clue.

1996: Panicked that I would have zero job prospects upon graduating the following year, I enlisted in the military as an officer-candidate-in-training.  BIG mistake.  Four days after arriving in Quantico, I left.  It was one of the best decisions I ever made. (The leaving, not the enlisting.)

1997: I graduated college, and began a career at a multi-billion dollar company (at which I am still currently employed).  I landed the job through a little bit of effort and a whole lot of dumb luck; and I am so incredibly blessed to have been given the opportunity.

1998: I ran my first (and only) marathon (in Chicago).  I became aware that I’m not only a ‘smart’ person, that I’m not confined exclusively to thinking pursuits [i.e., academics, analytical work], but that I can be a little bit athletic, too.  I also realized I have a lot more personal strength in me and about me than I thought…

1999: I met the guy who would later turn into my husband; and was absolutely thrilled when he reciprocated my affections.

2000: Y2K never happened, and nothing dramatic changed with the turn of the century.  I learned that expectations are way over-rated.

2001: The guy from 1999 and I got married.  🙂  I loved that our wedding was a beautiful-yet-low-key gathering of very dear family and friends – it felt completely like ‘us’.

2002: Feeling a little adrift, a little uneasy, and a little uncertain of what I wanted to ‘really do’ in life, I started grad school.

2003: My husband and I purchased our first home, and I started to feel like I was living as a full-on ‘adult’.

2004: Honestly, this year is a total blur.  I don’t have any genuine, salient memories from this entire year.  Wow – talk about revealing…

2005: I finished grad school – and realized that my current job was much better than the alternative career that the grad school degree would afford.  I left grad school with more debt, more degrees, and a little more education – but otherwise pretty much unchanged.

2006: My husband’s best friend died.  (Colon cancer; he was 32 years old.)  This was the first death of someone really close to us (that wasn’t an aging  grandparent or other somewhat ‘expected’ death) that I had ever experienced.  Shortly after our friend’s passing, my husband and I took in his dog – and our family grew from 2 to 3.

2007: I began to get help for some personal issues I was experiencing – and life began to look hopeful once again.

2008: I transitioned from a full-time to a part-time work schedule – and I engaged in more volunteer opportunities, and explored different things that might interest me.  I started trying to figure out what I really like, what I truly enjoy.

2009: I attended a 10-day silent meditation retreat – and it truly changed my life.  (So much so that I wrote a whole blog about it.)

2010: I began a year-long yoga teacher training program – and learned so much from it.  (And I blogged about that journey, too.)

2011: I’m living a ridiculously blessed life, with amazing family and friends close to me, and am experiencing more and more moments of deep, genuine joy.  Life is beautiful.

Thank you for reading to the end.  I know this was long – but it is the journey of a life.  And actually, it’s one life that is just getting started…

Stef