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98 was a good year
By heather | May 23, 2008
Thank God for Vicki, who has provided me with an excuse for a post. Because it’s not that I haven’t wanted to post this week, its just that I refuse to post “I have writer’s block so this post will suck” posts, because I hate reading those from other people. But truly everything I’ve written this week sucks. Many, many drafts will never see the light of day because they meander all over the place with no inherent destination. I’m boring myself even trying to re-read them and turn them into something usable.
I realize that memes sometimes aren’t much better, so for the sake of a challenge (and getting something up on this here blog) I’ll take one of the topics and try to make it read more like a story than a meme. Given the way I’ve been writing this week, I’m not even attempting to answer every question – I’ll save some for another day. And no tags today either because I just don’t feel like doing all those links.
So the meme asks: what was I doing ten years ago? Remember 1998?
Ten years ago, I had just graduated from college and was living in Baltimore. I was on my own for the first time – an apartment with no roommates or bugs, which let’s face it – was AWESOME. I loooovved living alone and I loved Baltimore. I loved my little one-bedroom.
I was making my own money (starting salary – 20K) while I waited for my one true love to finish his 5 and a half year college education plan (here Brett – I’ll insert it for you “I was doing a co-op!!”) and join me in Baltimore.
The previous summer at a baseball game, we had mapped out our post-graduation plans, which included:
- get job in Baltimore, and
- move to Baltimore
In May of 1998 I adopted a cat, marking the first time I was responsible for something besides myself. At the time I couldn’t imagine anything that would make me return an animal, any animal, to a shelter but Ariel provided another turning point 9 years later when I chose sanity and my son after she started marking on Alex’s stuff.
Later that same year, I was in my first car accident. Driving in a sketchy section of downtown Baltimore (where I had to visit a work client) I was hit at an intersection by a prison warden transporting a van full of inmates when she ran a red light. She tried to sue me later as did one of the prisoners, but being naive I just ignored the letters I got from their lawyers and magically the problem went away. Come to think of it, maybe the lawyer did some research and realized they weren’t likely to ever get money from a 22 year making 20 grand a year.
At the time I wondered how the cops got to the scene of the accident so fast…now I realize they were probably hanging out around the corner just waiting for something to go down because the neighborhood was THAT BAD.
After the accident I was faced with the problem of a car payment, because my little graduation gift Escort was totalled. I bought another, newer model Escort and drove it until I got rear-ended on I-695 by a semi, at which point I decided to get a bigger freaking car because apparently no one in the city can see the small ones.
That year I worked my ass off as a headhunter. Most of us were recent college grads, almost everyone was under 30. Looking back now, I know I worked with people who had families but I can’t imagine how they did it, especially with the salary. We were expected in no later than 7:15am and frequently didn’t finish until after 7pm.
I learned more in that job than any job since, including how to fire people twice my age and enough about the technology industry to realize that I was hiring some real idiots who were making 5 times my salary with better hours and less effort. This prompted my first career change, only to realize that there are idiots in every profession. And every office. Usually sitting right next to me, talking non-stop.
I spent the summer by the pool of my apartment complex, hitting Orioles games last minute with scalped tickets, and visiting my boyfriend in Pennsylvania. Even then, I taught aerobics working at a Bally’s down the street. I thought I could probably stand to lose a few pounds, and when I look at old pictures I think, “Damn, I wish I was that skinny now.”
I made good friends, one of whom was my boss at the sweatshop and who to this day is one of my very best friends. Once I moved away all the others fell off the radar, but we kept in touch through marriage and anti-depressants and jobs and babies.
If you’d asked me then what I’d be doing in 10 years I would have said something that falls along the line of “having it all” – house, kids, high-powered career, etc. At the time 10 years seemed so far out I thought it would never arrive and because I didn’t know then that the definition of “having it all” changes as you get older.
You almost never realize at the time how much you’re learning and growing and I was no different.
10 years from now I wonder what I’ll think about 2008. I’ll likely cringe with embarrasment at some of the more melodramatic entries that live on forever through the blog. I hope in 2018 I won’t be toiling away in a grey cube on some meaningless government job.
I hope I’ll be able to look back with no regrets as to how I’ve spent the time.
Topics: nostalgia, writing challenges | 3 Comments »
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May 23rd, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Wow. How do you do that? I tried thinking back on 1998 and I couldn’t remember much.
Miss’s last blog post..Blah, Blah, Blah? and a tag
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Hey, we have come along way in 10 years. We used to sleep 2 to a single bed with no worries….now a king size isn’t big enough. I don’t think we have changed that much, we still look at hot as we always have.
May 26th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Oh I love this meme, I might have to borrow it from you ; )
Baltimore sounds awesome. Wasn’t your first apartment on your own the best? Ahh the freedom.
skiplovey’s last blog post..The party is over