1994

1994

Last night as I was falling asleep I could not help but think about the year 1994. That's the year I started off with a really hard winter. I also started a new job that spring at Stop & Shop in Northampton, MA (shout out to my former co-workers). I was a bagger and worked my way up to cashier. I was a High School junior without a driver's license and 1/2 hour from "town" but I was determined to work. 

That's just me. I always found a way and I shared rides with friends to get to my job. I figured I'd save up for car insurance and my very first car. My very first car was purchased in 1995 and it was a Subaru GL hatchback. THE BEAST. The Beast got me through the rest of high school and all of college.

Back to 1994. In 1994 I met some pretty great friends and said goodbye to others who went off to college, joined the Air Force (you know, usual kid-to-adult transition stuff). In Spring of 1994 something magical happened. I made friends that I still have to this very day: March 12, 2015. The winter of 2015 was also unusually hard. 2" more and we'll break the all-time record for snow in Boston. This is the time of year I begin to HOPE for that 2". Come on--break that darn record!

In Fall of 1994 (after a whole summer of being friends) I began to date my now husband. 6 years later on the very same date but different year we got married on October 14, 2000. The other night I watched a friend's band in Western MA and it occurred to me how important that number is to my life every single solitary day. Nineteen Hundred and Ninety Four.

I'd love to hear from you if you also have a killer year that basically made you exactly who you are and who you want to be. And to all the friends I re-connected with FROM 1994 after not talking for more than 2 decades: Thank you. Thank you Internet. I always needed you in my life and now we've come full circle. It just took more than twenty years.

Hope Springs Eternal

Transitions

This has been a transition week for me thus far. We decided to spend a 3 day weekend in Maine after our last trip was postponed due to weather. We were determined to get one last snowmobile weekend in. We were like those Rabid Fans that they used to talk about at MathWorks user conferences. :)

We made it up the 1 mile to the house (I snowshoed, Tyler walked on top of the snow). We packed for a 3 day weekend in 2 small coolers and 2 small backpacks. Try this yourself if you ever want to feel like some sort of Packing Goddess. We were able to snowmobile for a good 3 hour run. Tyler makes fun of me because I really love using hand signals. When you pass other riders you signal how many riders behind you. When I got to lead it was: 1. When Tyler led my hand signal was closed fist to indicate 0 behind me. Everyone waved and everyone was so kind.

Yesterday evening I made a tough choice regarding a friend of mine. I decided to take a bit of a "break." Hanging out with this friend was stressing me out. We seemed constantly out of synch. It got to the point where I stopped spending time with this friend (or making time to hang with them). It got to the point where we would argue about the most simple of topics. For the life of me, I could not figure out this relationship.

So I asked them to take a break and maybe sit down for tea or something in April once we've had a few weeks apart. This was not an easy request. In recent weeks I'd been asking myself: "What is it about this friendship that bothers me?" or "Why do none of my other friends seem so determined to push back and disagree with me?"

Have any of you ever had this type of thing happen to you? I'm 36 years old and at my age if I tend to make a new friend I keep them around for...life. Is there anyone in your life that you just had to say "you're driving me bonkers."

If only life were as simple as an old postcard: