Zero times Four

New Year’s Eve, 1989 

I am five years old. Duck Tales and Inspector Gadget make my imagination run wild. My best friend is the girl next door; we play War together and ride our bikes as fast as possible from one end of our suburban Ohio neighborhood street to the other. 

In the summer, we catch fireflies in jars and play hide-and-seek outside until our mothers call us in after dusk. I have two brothers and dreams of nothing more than these moments. 

New Year’s Eve, 1999 

I am fifteen years old. This was a big year, what with all the computer dates switching from 1999 to 2000 and no one being too sure that technology could handle it. There’s a thick cloud in the air, as if the world might end the next day. We all better make it last—this one last moment. 

I love Dawson’s Creek and Friends. We’ve moved in this decade, crisscrossing the country before settling in North Texas. My best friend and I go to Driver’s Ed together, talk about boys, pick up Slurpees from 7-11, and TP houses. 

I now have an extra brother, who’s three now. I’m not in the smart classes at school, but I want to be. My friends don’t drink, so neither do I. I am small for my age and only entered puberty about twelve months ago. I want to have boyfriends and be in love but am also terrified of boys and being in love, so I keep my distance, preferring instead to daydream about love, watching movies and reading books about it. 

I don’t fantasize about what my life will look like in the future or who I will be. I just enjoy the moments given to me. 

At the end of the night, the ball drops, and nothing much happens. The world keeps turning. 

New Year’s Eve, 2009 

I am twenty-five years old with a college degree, a professional pilot license, a husband, a two-year-old baby, and another one on the way. My favorite shows are The Office, Lost, and How I Met Your Mother. Netflix is a major thing in the form of DVD delivery, and I’m a huge fan. 

In this decade, I learned to drink, fell in and out of love a few times, and found my place in the world and lost it, again and again. My best friend is my old college roommate; our relationship solidified freshman year after being bullied by the same group of men. She and I talk most days about our lives, our dreams, our careers—though I’ve just put my own professional life aside to stay home with my growing family.

As the decade comes to a close, I feel a sudden lust for something more. I start blogging, writing about my life, telling my Facebook friends and family what’s going on with me. My life is rather lonely; though I have a few mom friends, I’m in a city far from my family and most of my friends. My college friends are mostly still in the partying and career-building stages of their lives, but I have kids now and I’m having to once again redefine my place in life. 

I have dreams of a life that is happy and full of love—and, hopefully, more money.  

New Year’s Eve, 2019 

I am thirty-five years old. I’ve self-published four books and I run my own business from home.  I’ve had one mid-life crisis (at age 33, thanks for asking). I have three wonderful children. I watch too much TV—streaming is a thing now, and it’s so amazing.  I no longer have favorites when it comes to shows, because my tastes are all over the place. 

My best friends are my husband and my college best friend, who I still talk to every day about life, love, dreams, and how to become better people. I coach soccer, help run Cub Scouts with my husband, and run a writing group in my town helping authors connect with their creativity. I can read a book with so much verocity that I can hardly put it down. 

Relationships with my family and friends have changed over the years. People have changed. That’s been the hardest thing for me to accept this decade—that people go their own ways and do their own things, as do I, and those ways won’t always overlap. The darkness inside of others surfaces and spills out into the world, into my world. There is no stopping it. There is only trying to swim above it and find the light.

I have big dreams for the next decade of my life.

My Dreams for 2029

I dream that I will raise teenagers that will be kind, bold, intuitive creatures. I dream that my children won’t be scared to stand up to bullies, that they will fight for what is right. That they will love others, but not too hard—there is so much life for them to live, and loving themselves has to come before anything else. 

I want to publish more books and be happy with my work. I want to be able to read between the lines better and be able to manage my emotions when I’m hurt. I want to fall in love with my husband repeatedly. I want to form a better relationship with God. I want to eat better 85% of the time instead of 55%. I want to see the world. 

Four times in my life, I’ve seen the ball drop and the decade start over anew, but looking at this list I feel somehow like I’ve lived so much and yet so little. I’ve lost friends and family over these decades, and there are lives that will never have the chance to see another decade zero out. There are people I miss, and their lives are tributes for me to keep trying harder because they would do the same if they had the chance.

Happy New Year to all of you. Thank you for following along on my journey with me and for all of your support. It means more than you know.  

XOXO -

Colleen