That Was Then, This Is Now
There's a thing going around, where you compare your life in a past year to your life now. lathany gave me 2008.
Age then: 38/9
Age now: 47
Relationship status then (and now): married
December 2008 was our 11th anniversary. This year will be 19. Wow.
2008 was a pretty big year for us, actually, but I can't really talk about any of it here. Two very big things happened. One of them was absolutely life-changing. Our relationship now is completely different than it was then because of it. Some things are definitely better. Some have suffered, particularly in the last couple of years, but whether that's necessarily because of what happened in 2008, I'm not sure.
Kids then: Thing One (10), Thing Two (8), Little Cat Z (3)
Kids now: T1 (18), T2 (16), LCZ (11), My Cindy Lou Who (6)
T1 and T2 were both obviously very bright and artistic already in 2008. LCZ had pretty obvious developmental delays. She barely talked, and wasn't potty trained. I remember her being happy and friendly and playful, but she just wasn't hitting the milestones when she was supposed to.
Now, T1 has just started her freshman year of college, majoring in art. She graduated high school 4th in her class (a class of only 36, but still, her GPA was 3.915, I believe) and has a merit scholarship from Northern Illinois University that covers about half of her tuition for all four years of getting her BA. T2 is insanely smart and talented. And he knows it, and has some trouble fitting in at school because he knows it.:-( LCZ had a couple of years (I think? Maybe only one?) of Early Childhood Education, and then was "mainstreamed" into a regular class, only one year behind. She's in Girl Scouts, and she's about average as far as grades go. My Cindy Lou Who, on the other hand, is on the autism spectrum. We don't have a formal diagnosis yet, but her Early Childhood Education team was pretty sure that's what a diagnosis would say. (They used to say she probably had Asperger's, but that's no longer a diagnosis.) She is in a special education class. She's not potty trained yet, and her communication skills are . . . improving. She's already showing interest in customizing her My Little Pony toys . . . without Mommy and Daddy's approval, unfortunately!
Living then (and now): Our first house
I think we already wanted to move back to DeKalb by 2008. We moved to our current house, in a little tiny town, in 2001, and it didn't take us too long to decide we needed to live either in a bigger town, or out of town completely. Unfortunately, I don't know how we will ever manage to sell this house. It needed (and still does) much more work than we realized when we bought it, and being in a little tiny town, with almost no amenities, it's going to be hard to find someone willing to buy it. We're already figuring we'll have to sell for $20,000 less than we paid. Thankfully, that would be more than we owe on it!
Occupation then: bookkeeper in public accounting firm
Occupation now: student (kind of), designer of knitting patterns
I was a good bookkeeper, at least up until the peri-natal (later post partum) depression kicked in while I was pregnant with LCZ. By 2008, I was not doing great. I was only working part-time (in part because our clients were dropping off thanks to the economy, in part because I just . . . couldn't get myself to work), and I was having a hard time staying on top of my work. I was let go in 2010. In 2013, I went back to school to finally finish my BS in biology. I currently have one year of physics left, and that's all. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get signed up for it for this semester. I have to make sure I get it done in spring/summer, so I can try to get a job that will maybe pay enough to help pay my student loans down. In the meantime, I am working on knitting design, and trying to find a regular job that I can do and still be home for MCLW. Trying to find childcare is hard enough. Trying to find it for someone with an autism spectrum disorder, especially out here in the boonies, is . . . harder, to say the least. When T1 was home, I left her in charge. T2 is just not up to that.
Happy then: Post partum depression, so not really
Happy now: It's complicated
I've come through the other end of PPD, and that's all to the good. But I have regrets that I'm having trouble coming to terms with. I wish I hadn't gone back to school. I like school, but, I haven't been a very good student this time around, especially when still battling the PPD. I don't like the person I've been for a long time, and I don't know how much of that I can change. But that's still better than how I felt with the depression.
If you want a year to compare with your current life, leave me a comment!
Age then: 38/9
Age now: 47
Relationship status then (and now): married
December 2008 was our 11th anniversary. This year will be 19. Wow.
2008 was a pretty big year for us, actually, but I can't really talk about any of it here. Two very big things happened. One of them was absolutely life-changing. Our relationship now is completely different than it was then because of it. Some things are definitely better. Some have suffered, particularly in the last couple of years, but whether that's necessarily because of what happened in 2008, I'm not sure.
Kids then: Thing One (10), Thing Two (8), Little Cat Z (3)
Kids now: T1 (18), T2 (16), LCZ (11), My Cindy Lou Who (6)
T1 and T2 were both obviously very bright and artistic already in 2008. LCZ had pretty obvious developmental delays. She barely talked, and wasn't potty trained. I remember her being happy and friendly and playful, but she just wasn't hitting the milestones when she was supposed to.
Now, T1 has just started her freshman year of college, majoring in art. She graduated high school 4th in her class (a class of only 36, but still, her GPA was 3.915, I believe) and has a merit scholarship from Northern Illinois University that covers about half of her tuition for all four years of getting her BA. T2 is insanely smart and talented. And he knows it, and has some trouble fitting in at school because he knows it.:-( LCZ had a couple of years (I think? Maybe only one?) of Early Childhood Education, and then was "mainstreamed" into a regular class, only one year behind. She's in Girl Scouts, and she's about average as far as grades go. My Cindy Lou Who, on the other hand, is on the autism spectrum. We don't have a formal diagnosis yet, but her Early Childhood Education team was pretty sure that's what a diagnosis would say. (They used to say she probably had Asperger's, but that's no longer a diagnosis.) She is in a special education class. She's not potty trained yet, and her communication skills are . . . improving. She's already showing interest in customizing her My Little Pony toys . . . without Mommy and Daddy's approval, unfortunately!
Living then (and now): Our first house
I think we already wanted to move back to DeKalb by 2008. We moved to our current house, in a little tiny town, in 2001, and it didn't take us too long to decide we needed to live either in a bigger town, or out of town completely. Unfortunately, I don't know how we will ever manage to sell this house. It needed (and still does) much more work than we realized when we bought it, and being in a little tiny town, with almost no amenities, it's going to be hard to find someone willing to buy it. We're already figuring we'll have to sell for $20,000 less than we paid. Thankfully, that would be more than we owe on it!
Occupation then: bookkeeper in public accounting firm
Occupation now: student (kind of), designer of knitting patterns
I was a good bookkeeper, at least up until the peri-natal (later post partum) depression kicked in while I was pregnant with LCZ. By 2008, I was not doing great. I was only working part-time (in part because our clients were dropping off thanks to the economy, in part because I just . . . couldn't get myself to work), and I was having a hard time staying on top of my work. I was let go in 2010. In 2013, I went back to school to finally finish my BS in biology. I currently have one year of physics left, and that's all. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get signed up for it for this semester. I have to make sure I get it done in spring/summer, so I can try to get a job that will maybe pay enough to help pay my student loans down. In the meantime, I am working on knitting design, and trying to find a regular job that I can do and still be home for MCLW. Trying to find childcare is hard enough. Trying to find it for someone with an autism spectrum disorder, especially out here in the boonies, is . . . harder, to say the least. When T1 was home, I left her in charge. T2 is just not up to that.
Happy then: Post partum depression, so not really
Happy now: It's complicated
I've come through the other end of PPD, and that's all to the good. But I have regrets that I'm having trouble coming to terms with. I wish I hadn't gone back to school. I like school, but, I haven't been a very good student this time around, especially when still battling the PPD. I don't like the person I've been for a long time, and I don't know how much of that I can change. But that's still better than how I felt with the depression.
If you want a year to compare with your current life, leave me a comment!