{"id":587,"date":"2010-06-01T16:16:06","date_gmt":"2010-06-02T00:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/?p=587"},"modified":"2010-06-01T16:20:59","modified_gmt":"2010-06-02T00:20:59","slug":"10-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/?p=587","title":{"rendered":"10 Years Ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ten years ago:<\/p>\n

Clinton was president.\u00a0 Sepetember 11th was just the day after September 10th.\u00a0 We survived the Y2K panic.\u00a0 National unemployment was 4%<\/strong>.\u00a0 American Beauty<\/em> won Best Picture at the Oscars.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I lived in Virginia.\u00a0 I was 17.\u00a0 And I graduated from high school.\u00a0\u00a0Dad was there too, along with the rest of my family.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And now I’m headed back.\u00a0 Though it’s Virginia, not Dodge.\u00a0 Headed back to 95 degree heat<\/strong>, Republicans, the James River, southern accents and white linen pants.\u00a0 Yes, indeed, it’s my 10 year reunion y’all.\u00a0 A time for folks to compare designer purses, talk about your 2.5 kids and try to look as skinny as possible.\u00a0 Personally, I’m hoping for just the last one.\u00a0 Though with the heat, I may just sweat off a few extra pounds before the reuion starts.<\/p>\n

This 10 year thing has made me feel oddly introspective recently.\u00a0 I wondered, what would my life look like in the snapshot form that often is used to describe one’s life\u00a0at events such as these.\u00a0 Here’s what I came up with:<\/p>\n

\u00a0“Oh yes, I’m recently married.\u00a0 My husband and I live in a rich, suburban neighborhood.\u00a0 I’m a teacher and he works in the software industry.\u00a0 Look at my shiny new SUV and my huge diamond ring.\u00a0 Isn’t my life awesome?<\/em>\u00a0 “<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh yuck. Oh gag.\u00a0 OH horrible sterotype we never wanted to be!\u00a0 But as I started to panic about becoming a founding member of the Real Housewives of Seattle<\/em> club,\u00a0 and needing to\u00a0find defences to all of these things whether for myself or for others,\u00a0I took a moment to think about the depth, the real life, and the love that shape all of those statements above.<\/p>\n

“Oh yes, I’m recently married, and he works in the software industry”<\/strong><\/em> – To my best friend, the man of my dreams, the one who I wouldn’t care if he worked at Wendy’s and lived in a van down by the river, I wouldn’t have anyone else.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“<\/strong>My husband and I live in rich, suburban neighborhood”<\/strong> –<\/em> We live in a house which we affectionatly call the Dr. Seuss house because it’s so weird, funky, and quirky.\u00a0 It used to have purple shutters ok?\u00a0 Our neighborhood is also wildly diverse (as is most of Seattle); in fact we can walk to 6 different ethnic restaurants.<\/p>\n

“I’m a teacher”<\/strong><\/em> – At a bilingual school.\u00a0 Where I get to practice French every day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Look at my huge diamond ring”<\/em><\/strong> – That was my husband’s great-grandmothers.\u00a0 The diamond is set in a band that that same husband designed himself.\u00a0 Did I mention he rocks?<\/p>\n

“And\u00a0\u00a0my\u00a0shiny new SUV<\/strong>” – OK, so it is pretty sweet.\u00a0 But it also has 4 wheel drive to take us to the mountains where we pretty much spend all of our free time.\u00a0 <\/address>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

“<\/strong>Isn’t my life awesome?”<\/strong> –<\/em>\u00a0 YOU BET YOUR ASS IT IS.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ten years ago: Clinton was president.\u00a0 Sepetember 11th was just the day after September 10th.\u00a0 We survived the Y2K panic.\u00a0 National unemployment was 4%.\u00a0 American…<\/p>\n

Continue reading10 Years Ago<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-friends","category-life","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=587"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":604,"href":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions\/604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/amyalphin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}