Happy New Year 2004!
Jan. 1st, 2004 12:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinanjuWelcome, gentle reader, to The Wooooooorld of Tomorrow! When I was just a wee lad, lo these many years ago, I lay in bed one night thinking about the future. As a science fiction geek even at the tender age of 10 or younger, I was fascinated by the future, and what it might hold. I had just recently seen one of the specials about The Year 2000 and the dawn of the 21st century.
I remember calculating that I would be...oh my god! I would be FORTY-ONE YEARS OLD in the year 2000! Why, I'd be OLD. I'd be older than my parents were at the time. It might be the 21st century (and it might not, either, as it turned out), but I'd be an old man.
Well, 2000 came and went and civilization did not repeat did not collapse. And I'll never see 41 again. In fact, as of January 12th, 2004, I'll never see 44 again. I will officially be middle-aged (assuming I live to be at least 90, as planned). Nonetheless, I'm content with who and what I am--which I could have said at many younger ages. In some ways I'm still exactly the man I was at 25 or 35, and in other ways I'm a completely different person. And all the ways in which I'm different, I am (in my opinion) better for it.
2004 will also be the year in which I will have been married to the lovely and talented![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
snippy for five years. I am pleased and excited to be married to her. We fit together so well it's spooky. And, as usually happens with married couples, we've both become somewhat more like our partner. I've learned to express myself a bit better, not to be so damn repressed all the damn time--and she's learned to uncork her anger a little (the one emotion I've never had trouble expressing).
It seems so much longer than that (and I mean that in a good way); we've had an action-packed five years, I must say. It's her second marriage and my first, and I never intended to have children, so marrying a woman with two boys was, uhm, challenging. Especially given the clashes over our views on child-rearing. Mine are shaped by my Southern Baptist upbringing in Virginia. Hers are not. But as they're her kids, her approach prevailed. There've been other adventures. The week in which the refrigerator, microwave oven, and the kitchen tv all broke down within days of one another was lots of fun. Discovering the marriage penalty (instead of each receiving a nice tax refund that first year, we had to scramble to pull together enough money to pay the extra income tax we found ourselves saddled with). Fighting over the kids' chores and schoolwork. That first year was really hard, but we were really good together, too, and we got thru it.
So. Five years. It's not nearly enough yet, and though we both occasionally wish we'd found one another much earlier, we both also recognize that we probably weren't the people who'd have been so suitable for one another before then. We're both who we are because of our life experiences, and even we'd met much earlier, even if we'd been attracted to one another, we weren't ready to make it work yet. So--a late start, but well worth the wait. And I'm looking forward to another year with my sweetie.
I remember calculating that I would be...oh my god! I would be FORTY-ONE YEARS OLD in the year 2000! Why, I'd be OLD. I'd be older than my parents were at the time. It might be the 21st century (and it might not, either, as it turned out), but I'd be an old man.
Well, 2000 came and went and civilization did not repeat did not collapse. And I'll never see 41 again. In fact, as of January 12th, 2004, I'll never see 44 again. I will officially be middle-aged (assuming I live to be at least 90, as planned). Nonetheless, I'm content with who and what I am--which I could have said at many younger ages. In some ways I'm still exactly the man I was at 25 or 35, and in other ways I'm a completely different person. And all the ways in which I'm different, I am (in my opinion) better for it.
2004 will also be the year in which I will have been married to the lovely and talented
snippy for five years. I am pleased and excited to be married to her. We fit together so well it's spooky. And, as usually happens with married couples, we've both become somewhat more like our partner. I've learned to express myself a bit better, not to be so damn repressed all the damn time--and she's learned to uncork her anger a little (the one emotion I've never had trouble expressing). It seems so much longer than that (and I mean that in a good way); we've had an action-packed five years, I must say. It's her second marriage and my first, and I never intended to have children, so marrying a woman with two boys was, uhm, challenging. Especially given the clashes over our views on child-rearing. Mine are shaped by my Southern Baptist upbringing in Virginia. Hers are not. But as they're her kids, her approach prevailed. There've been other adventures. The week in which the refrigerator, microwave oven, and the kitchen tv all broke down within days of one another was lots of fun. Discovering the marriage penalty (instead of each receiving a nice tax refund that first year, we had to scramble to pull together enough money to pay the extra income tax we found ourselves saddled with). Fighting over the kids' chores and schoolwork. That first year was really hard, but we were really good together, too, and we got thru it.
So. Five years. It's not nearly enough yet, and though we both occasionally wish we'd found one another much earlier, we both also recognize that we probably weren't the people who'd have been so suitable for one another before then. We're both who we are because of our life experiences, and even we'd met much earlier, even if we'd been attracted to one another, we weren't ready to make it work yet. So--a late start, but well worth the wait. And I'm looking forward to another year with my sweetie.
