here come the drums

You know what I realized the other day?

No year of my life has been like any other year of my life since maybe 7th grade.*

7th grade was my last year in elementary school.
8th grade was at Stonewall Jackson.
9th grade was in trailers at Lee-Davis.
10th grade was dating Karen.
11th was fighting with Karen.
12th was spent hanging with Matt D, Eric and Ben. (Plus others.)
Then 4 years of college. All different.**
1999 was spent working.
2000 was spent at a different job.
2001 was spent in college, again. As was 2002.
2003 I was in LA, getting my Master's.
2004 I spent being sick.
2005 was spent finishing school and not finding a job. And the Sopranos videogame.
2006 was moving up to Mountain View and working.
2007 was about startup and moving to Cisco.
2008 has been about R moving mostly.

The point here is that nothing ever stays the same. Day-to-day, sure. The changes happen so slowly, so naturally in most cases, we don't notice the difference between the starting point and where we are.

There are certainly days I can wake up and ask myself, "How the hell did I get here?" And you know what? There isn't a single answer, a sole reason. The decisions compound and there is no going back.

But for everyone (including myself), what old days do you long for? You're recalling a single memory, not a time when things were better. Run towards the new and stop lamenting for days that never existed.

There is no reason in the world to thing you can stop change. And no reason in the world you should want to. Instead, let's have a party. Those are more fun anyway.

* That's a slight, slight lie — I believe that an argument could be made for me that 2001/2002 were similar. Though given 9/11, it's prob more fair to say that they weren't.

** Ok, we might be able to say that sophomore and junior years were a bit alike — I was dating Petunia both years and there was nothing too different about them, other than my roommate situation.