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First, a clarification on the previous post: while I enjoy the anonymity of writing to no one in particular, I do love getting feedback and reading comments! Thanks Nina for hanging in there with me. And if you're lurking around, please do say hi once in a while.



Today I bought a home. For the first time in my 31 years, there is a piece of paper with my name on it that says that I own this piece of property. Technically, I owned our condo too but RC bought it before he met me so I wasn't on the deed. It never bothered me so we didn't change it.



My sister moved to Dallas today. The last time we were seperated by this many miles was exactly 10 years ago when I moved to Dallas in August, 2000.



Ten years.



I hate to be all trite and nostalgic about this big moment in my life, but it's hard not to when it's wrapped up in a pretty little package like a decade. I'll try to limit this in the future but today was a big day for me so give me this.



When I packed up my life ten years ago, I was 21 and had just graduated college. I was in a quasi-relationship that ended first real love and every thing it came into contact with after that. I decided to leave Chicago (and him) to try to get a new start on every thing. Many people thought I was moving to be closer to some one who lived in Dallas at the time, but we were barely speaking after the drama (it was always drama in those days) of the previous summer. I enrolled myself into paralegal school, transferred my waitressing gig to Maggiano's Dallas, packed up all my stuff into my Nissan Sentra and left with my dad for Dallas.



Did you catch that last part? All my stuff in a Nissan Sentra. Everything that I could lay a claim to in this world and some stuff that I really couldn't, fit in a subcompact car plus with enough room for my father. I had no money in my bank and an income that relied on how much a smiled at people. I was responsible for only myself and I barely did that right. This was only ten years ago.



When I think about that - it's difficult for me to comprehend that was me. Today, I walked into my house in one of the most affluent neighborhoods in the Chicago area, with my two sons and felt perfectly at ease at who I am. I am responsible for those two boys and some how, they have managed to make it this far. I can't even fit the two boys plus their double stroller in my Sentra. If 21 y/o me was watching this whole thing, she would be feeling one of the following things

a. happy that my life seemed so normal
b. disgusted that my life seemed so normal
c. surprised that my life seemed so normal

Normal. It's normal. Life is normal. I never thought I would get this far. I used to live by the quote ". . .live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse" but that's not what's happening here, is it? That's not where my life is going. My life, as boring as it might seem to other people, will go on and I will enjoy it.

Whoda' thunk it?