one sentence per year of my life

at shannon's request. 

1.  i was born in columbus, ohio and because my mom got pregnant with me to spite my dad who forgot to buy her a valentine's day present.   
2.  i was still completely bald as a two-year-old.
3.  during this year we were living in a house where i had the attic bedroom with slanted ceilings and big, 70's style daisys painted all over the room. 
4.  we moved to the podunk town that was two hours from any major city and 40 minutes to the closest mall or movie theater where i would spend the next 13 years of my life.
5. i met my oldest friend right before i turned five - she lived kitty-corner from my house and we spent the summer before first grade standing on our respective corners staring at each other until i finally got the nerve up to ask her to play with me - and she told me she couldn't because she had chores. 
6.  i was relieved to finally be over the episode of peeing my pants at school right before lunch because i was too afraid to ask to go to the bathroom in front of the whole class. 
7.  my friend told me about the ozone layer during the summer of my 7th year and i refused to go outside to play - instead i stayed inside and read books because i was afraid i'd burn to a crisp and die. 
8.  i convinced my teachers to let me stay inside to read during recess because i was still afraid of the ozone layer killing me. 
9.  my friend told me that i was now dating a guy who was in 8th grade and lived down the street from me - i was so afraid that my mom would find out because i had ripped the page out of the phone book that contained his phone number - we broke up two days later before ever even seeing each other face to face while we were dating.
10.  i had a big crush on the friend that set me up with the guy, above, and taught her how to french kiss (like i even knew how!) in my bedroom closet - i also gave her a hickey which i'm sure my mom had fun explaining to her mom - it wasn't really an open and accepting town. 
11.  i started my period in the same month as my eleventh birthday and told no one but my sister, who went out to buy me always for teens because i was too afraid to use a tampon. 
12.  my parents separated and my dad moved ten blocks away - i also met the woman he started dating shortly after the separation when i spent the night at my dad's house and she brought over peach new york seltzers and told me how much she knew about me - my dad never even introduced me to her and i found out her name the next day through the well-oiled rumor mill in our town - i still hate peach new york seltzer. 
13. this was the first year that i got on the honor roll - i wasn't even trying and was shocked that i was considered smart - i had no idea that i was.
14.  i thought i wanted to play tennis in high school instead of being a cheerleader like i was in junior high, but it was then that i realized that i have no sports ability whatsoever. 
15.  i joined theater and fell in love with a whole new group of friends and i experienced a completely different part of high-school life that i didn't know existed before.   
16.  i lost my virginity to my boyfriend, who had battled hodgkins disease most of his childhood, and he broke up with me a week later when he found out he was in remission and his hair started growing back.   
17. i left town two weeks after graduation and moved to san francisco for art school where i wanted to major in costume design. 
18.  i was so naive and living with two very worldly roommates in art school - they told me they were taking me to a street fair in san francisco one day and they took me to the folsom street fair - talk about a shock.   
19.  i started therapy which did wonders for me and i finally started to break loose from my naive little ohio girl shell. 
20. at the end of this year i moved from san francisco, which was one of the saddest things i've ever had to do, to move closer to my family and new niece in colorado.
21. i feel like i've messed up somewhere because i'm missing like a year and a half around this time, when i went to school at hws - who knows.
22.  i met the boy that would be my husband and we fell instantly in love and moved in together two weeks after our first date. 
23.  the boy and i bought our first house - a seventies style split level in the burbs of the boulder-denver metro area. 
24.  we married after a quick six-week engagement on a beach in key west - everyone thought i was pregnant - but really we just like to make quick decisions and weren't into a long, drawn out engagement. 
25.  we both worked for the same high-tech internet telecommunications company and made more money than we will for at least another ten years now. 
26.  we realized that living in the burbs and selling our souls to the man (even though it was a really nice man) wasn't the way we wanted to live for the rest of our lives, so we hopped a plane to portland one weekend, decided it would be our new home, came home and told everyone we were moving, had a contract on our house within a week and flew back to portland shortly after to find a home to buy, moved without jobs and started to simplify our lives by renovating our 100 year old home by ourselves and towards the middle of this year decided to adopt a baby after attending an informational seminar on international adoption. 
27.  we were steeped in the middle of what would become a failed adoption from india and thought we'd never have a baby - but in the spring of this year we decided that we would jump into a second, simultaneous adoption through our agency's domestic, african american infant program. 
28.  we adopted our daughter zaidee during my 28th year - the best year of my life so far. 
29.  this is my seventh year with hubby, he graduated from college and got a job, we moved into a new home, we're adding another family member this year, and i'm beginning the transition to being a stay at home mama - it's going to be one exciting year! 

Comments

[afrindiemum]

whoops - missed a few years in there!

19. i started therapy which did wonders for me and i finally started to break loose from my naive little ohio girl shell.
20. at the end of this year i moved from san francisco, which was one of the saddest things i've ever had to do, to move closer to my family and new niece in colorado.
21. i feel like i've messed up somewhere because i'm missing like a year and a half around this time, when i went to school at hws - who knows.

[afrindiemum]

well, shit! i forgot more!

14. i thought i wanted to play tennis in high school instead of being a cheerleader like i was in junior high, but it was then that i realized that i have no sports ability whatsoever.
15. i joined theater and fell in love with a whole new group of friends and i experienced a completely different part of high-school life that i didn't know existed before.
16. i lost my virginity to my boyfriend, who had battled hodgkins disease most of his childhood, and he broke up with me a week later when he found out he was in remission and his hair started growing back.

[Christine]

You are an inspiration! I agree with the New York Seltzer boycott!

[lisa]

That's a cool meme-thingy.

[Lilian]

This is really cool! I did something similar in my 100 things post (the second part - I write so much I had to divide it in two), but now by year like that. I'll keep this idea for a future post!

[sedie]

That is one of the coolest meme's I've read yet, when I get the chance I think I'll have to so one. Thanks for showing yourself (not that you don't always do that), but it's nice to say thanks again.

[erinberry]

very cool post!

[Erin O']

Super cool post, and super cool person!

I'm so happy you'll be a sahm! I hope to be that someday.
e

[Jenna]

VERY interesting. I might steal. I might not. :)

[mel]

i don't know why, but it really surprises me to learn that you're only 29. it seems like you've managed to pack a lot of life into that time.

[Sylvie]

That was cool.

[Marisa Howard-Karp]

Love the shotgun wedding bit...

[MoMo]

That was the best meme I've seen so far. Really, really interesting.

[Cat]

Wow, great idea.

And... really? you were conceived because of a forgotten St. Valentine present? Were your parents already married?

I would say:
1. I was born in Palma de Mallorca because my parents weren't smart enough to get some protection. I would say it was their first or second sexual experience AND they were each other's first gf/bf.

So you're a revenge and I'm a mistake lol.