2015.
How did it get here so fast?
It seems like just yesterday I was setting up my ethigirl05
email address, sure that the year 2005 would one day come but certain that it
wouldn’t get here fast enough.
And now it’s 2015. 10 years after the year that was once so far away and so monumental on the horizon.
It’s hard to believe sometimes that so much time has passed;
not just in the world around me but in my own life. A lot can happen in ten years.
In the past ten years, I’ve…
…walked on the Great Wall of China.
…driven down the Great Ocean Road in Australia.
…ridden camels around the Pyramids of Giza.
…earned a high school diploma.
…earned a college diploma.
…earned a masters degree.
…started college in Michigan.
…moved to Washington State.
…moved to Chengdu, China.
…lived in 13 different apartments or houses.
…had my heart broken a time or two.
…broken a heart or two.
…learned to embrace this marvelous state of singleness that
I find myself in.
…visited five continents.
…taught 500+ students (I should have kept track of the
actual numbers!).
...celebrated countless hellos.
…mourned countless goodbyes.
…made a fool of myself more than I’d care to admit to.
…grown up…somewhat.
…made countless mistakes.
…celebrated victories in multiple languages.
…missed out on so many birthdays/weddings/births because I’m
on the wrong continent or in the wrong time zone.
…and so much more….
The past ten years have been hard, but marvelous years. And now here I sit, in my room in Ethiopia,
thinking about the next ten years. I
never would have been able to imagine, even in my wildest dreams, where I am
now back when 2005 started. Nothing that
I expected really happened, but everything that happened has been so much
better in so many ways. Who knows what
the next ten years will bring. I can’t
even begin to imagine…
I do know a bit of what 2015 will hold. I’ll attempt new things, and probably fail at
a few (or most) of them. I’ll have good
days in my classroom and bad days in my classroom. I'm sure to shed many tears, some of joy and
some in sorrow. I’ll say goodbye to more
people that I love, and meet people that will change my life in ways that I can’t
dream of.
2015 brings with it so much anticipation and expectation,
but if there is one thing that I’ve learned in the past ten years, it’s that
you can’t predict what the next year(s) will bring.
Whatever it is, both good and bad, I’m ready for it.
Bring it on, 2015!
