I posted this on my Facebook already, but I wanted to add it to my blog as well for others to see that don't use Facebook.
The year was 1999. Greg and I were celebrating the oncoming new millennium with a couple friends of ours (one of whom who was and still is one of my best friends). The anticipation was intense. What would this new millennium bring? Was the purported Y2K phenomenon a real threat? The Y2K threat was bogus of course, but no one could predict the things to come. It was history in the making, and we were living it.
At the stroke of midnight and at the drop of the famous ball in Times Square, Greg pulled a small velvet-covered box out of his pocket, got down on one knee, and asked me to marry him. Perhaps it was a little cheesy (although sweet), but of course I said yes. The new millennium had kicked off to a good start, with the promise of a new chapter in our lives: marriage.
The years between then and now have been anything but predictable. Together we faced job losses, new jobs, marriage, hardships, triumphs, births and deaths of loved ones, terrorist attacks, graduations, economic downturns, home ownership, two wars, historic elections, amazing new technologies, and the illnesses of our parents. There was much laughter, many tears, and everything in between.
As the decade came to a close last year, things seemed to take a turn for the worse. Earlier last year, both Greg’s father and my mother were diagnosed with cancer (within just a month or two of each other). Both of their prognoses are good, but the diagnoses served as a grave reminder of how fleeting life can be, and that time does not stand still; rather it keeps marching on and on, no matter how we wish we could hit the pause button for the good parts and fast forward through the bad parts. The closer that 2009 came to ending, the happier I was; 2009 had been such a rough year for both of us and our families that I was glad to be rid of it forever.
The last day of the year and the decade had finally come. Although I had to work that night, I felt a certain lightheartedness at knowing it would soon be over. I may not have been able to properly celebrate since I’d be working, but the heaviness that my heart had held for months on end seemed to ease a little.
The year was 2009, 10 years to the day we got engaged, minus 16 hours. Greg and I had just woken up around 8 in the morning, and I made a beeline for the bathroom as usual. After I was finished, I went about my business for a few minutes. When I returned to the bathroom to look at what I had left on the counter, it was confirmation of what I had suspected for a few days but had so far been unable to prove. I clutched it in my shaking hand and ran to the bedroom with a New Year’s Eve surprise of my own for Greg, ten years after his, thrusting it in front of his barely opened eyes. His bleary eyes then saw what my eyes had seen first: the word “pregnant” on the digital pregnancy test I had just taken. Time really did seem to stand still for a moment, but the spell was broken after I my nerves got the best of me and I ran around the house like crazy, looking for the digital camera to capture that moment forever: the moment we became a real family.
The new decade had kicked off to a good start, with the promise of a new chapter in our lives: parenthood.
ETA: September 10, 2010
The year was 1999. Greg and I were celebrating the oncoming new millennium with a couple friends of ours (one of whom who was and still is one of my best friends). The anticipation was intense. What would this new millennium bring? Was the purported Y2K phenomenon a real threat? The Y2K threat was bogus of course, but no one could predict the things to come. It was history in the making, and we were living it.
At the stroke of midnight and at the drop of the famous ball in Times Square, Greg pulled a small velvet-covered box out of his pocket, got down on one knee, and asked me to marry him. Perhaps it was a little cheesy (although sweet), but of course I said yes. The new millennium had kicked off to a good start, with the promise of a new chapter in our lives: marriage.
The years between then and now have been anything but predictable. Together we faced job losses, new jobs, marriage, hardships, triumphs, births and deaths of loved ones, terrorist attacks, graduations, economic downturns, home ownership, two wars, historic elections, amazing new technologies, and the illnesses of our parents. There was much laughter, many tears, and everything in between.
As the decade came to a close last year, things seemed to take a turn for the worse. Earlier last year, both Greg’s father and my mother were diagnosed with cancer (within just a month or two of each other). Both of their prognoses are good, but the diagnoses served as a grave reminder of how fleeting life can be, and that time does not stand still; rather it keeps marching on and on, no matter how we wish we could hit the pause button for the good parts and fast forward through the bad parts. The closer that 2009 came to ending, the happier I was; 2009 had been such a rough year for both of us and our families that I was glad to be rid of it forever.
The last day of the year and the decade had finally come. Although I had to work that night, I felt a certain lightheartedness at knowing it would soon be over. I may not have been able to properly celebrate since I’d be working, but the heaviness that my heart had held for months on end seemed to ease a little.
The year was 2009, 10 years to the day we got engaged, minus 16 hours. Greg and I had just woken up around 8 in the morning, and I made a beeline for the bathroom as usual. After I was finished, I went about my business for a few minutes. When I returned to the bathroom to look at what I had left on the counter, it was confirmation of what I had suspected for a few days but had so far been unable to prove. I clutched it in my shaking hand and ran to the bedroom with a New Year’s Eve surprise of my own for Greg, ten years after his, thrusting it in front of his barely opened eyes. His bleary eyes then saw what my eyes had seen first: the word “pregnant” on the digital pregnancy test I had just taken. Time really did seem to stand still for a moment, but the spell was broken after I my nerves got the best of me and I ran around the house like crazy, looking for the digital camera to capture that moment forever: the moment we became a real family.
The new decade had kicked off to a good start, with the promise of a new chapter in our lives: parenthood.
ETA: September 10, 2010
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