Ten years

I'm currently reading the book, Imaginable: How to see the future coming and feel ready for anything -- even things that seem impossible today by Jane McGonigal. It's fascinating. You will probably be reading more than one blog post about it as I work my way through it. 

One of the exercises she suggests is to think about what your life will look like in ten years. To get a sense of how much can be packed into ten years, it made me think about what life was like ten years ago. It turns out we've had a lot of change in that ten years. 

Ten years ago, we were knee deep in our ongoing fight with the State of Illinois as to whether we would be able to bring home Y. and R. It was definitely not a sure thing and it was incredibly stressful. 

Ten years ago we had ten children, ages 6 to 22, with three in or about to start college and seven children living full time at home. 

Ten years ago we lived in the Big Ugly House and had no idea how long we would continue to be able to do so because of property taxes. We also had no plans for moving. We loved the house and the neighborhood and the city, yet we felt stuck. The house was often likened to an albatross across our shoulders. 

Ten years ago I was doing a lot of sewing, my spinning wheel had rooted itself to a corner of the craft porch, and I had no glimmer of an idea that I might be interested in weaving.

Ten years ago having horses was only a pipe dream. It seemed virtually impossible. 

Ten years ago I was still doing quite a bit of freelance writing, including being a staff writer for Adoption com, plus some other smaller online magazines. I can't think the last time I bothered you with an article I wrote that was published elsewhere.

Ten years ago I had a piano studio and taught a couple of days a week. 

Ten years ago I still got to see the P. Family and the H-S Family at least weekly if not daily. 

Ten years ago my father was still alive.

Ten years ago our homeschool history co-op was still running. 

Ten years ago we had one dog, Gretel and one cat, Midnight. Other than the occasional gerbil or frog, these were the only animals we were responsible for. 

Ten years ago I was still laughing at the ludicrous idea that a certain Republican candidate had a ghost of a chance of winning the nomination much less the presidency.

So much has changed in our lives since the summer of 2015. So much of what has changed I absolutely could not have predicted. It is bittersweet. So much of what we have now I either could barely hope for or wasn't even on my radar. Yet some of those things on my list, my dad and friends in particular, I still deeply miss seeing as frequently as I used to. Ten years, while it felt as though it has passed pretty quickly, is also a good chunk of time. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in feeling a twinge of trepidation in trying to picture what ten years from now will look like.