10 years ago

So I saw this on Shayna's blog, and who can resist this kind of thing?

Compare your life now to what you thought it would be ten years ago:
Ten years ago, I was just beginning my senior year of college (a melodramatic and ridiculous time in my life!). I imagined that I would have gone to school for a degree in Literature and become a professor at some tiny liberal arts school in a petite college town. Or maybe gotten a degree in ESL teaching and gone to work for an ESL department in a tiny liberal arts school. I would write in my free time and travel on school holidays. I would have had several heart-wrenching romances, and of course my students would secretly pine for me, but I would remain free and single, removed from it all.

Nowadays, I live with a man I love and, like my left leg or liver, couldn't imagine being without. We are raising my 5-year-old daughter (my big oops and life-shaking event), who predates the arrival of the true love. I work at a job I sincerely enjoy and will probably keep for many years, without interest in promotion or change, because it is handy, fun, and doesn't expect too much for me. Oddly enough, it is at a children's museum, a place I wouldn't have set foot in for less than $20 in my previous ten-year-plan. I garden a lot, but my big joy is writing. I have written two novels, each lying around in half-edited chunks, and I have a handful of short stories and poems sitting on editors' desks around the country. Wish them luck for me, okay?

In the next ten years, I would sincerely like to live in the country with two or three alpacas, a dog, some chickens, bees, and lots of compost. I would like to be able to grow all the vegetables and fruit that I eat in a year. I would also really like writing to be my day job and market gardening be my part-time love. Also in ten years, I would really like to be surviving Fiona's teen years without too much pain and insanity.

Hey, I dream big!