the late aughties?

I had some time to think about the last year, driving home today from bringing Khymi to meet her mom. The holidays are over and she'll be there for another month or so. I looked around and really noticed the bare trees and brown grass, and thought about where I began 2007. My friend and bandmate Jim died a year ago, and sometimes I feel like it still hasn't really hit us--I look around the room at a rehearsal, and even though we're a big group, I think, is this it? It was a strange way to begin the year. What a year it was.

In 2007, I finished my AmeriCorps year, went back to college, started an internship, moved out of Baltimore, got married and officially became a stepmom. Jacob started and finished a spring internship, found a job, graduated from law school, moved in with me, studied for the bar exam, moved here, took the bar, got married, started a new job and passed the bar.

This might sound weird, but I'm hoping for an uneventful 2008.

Every year for at least the past five years, I've experienced a move, a change in relationship status, a change in occupation, or some combination of the three. Sometimes there were all three, sometimes there were multiple occurrences within a year. Not that I didn't enjoy my early twenties, but I'm finally looking forward to a year in which not one of those things is likely to happen.

Less upheaval. More stability. More baking, more movie nights, more music. More friends, more family, more working, more reading. More small-scale travel, more gardening, more neighborhood bike tourism. More walks for no reason. More celebrating friends' weddings and new babies (none for me, thanks--I'm good on life changes for now).

I guess 2008 might not be so uneventful after all, but with any luck, it'll be the right kind of uneventful. Oh, and there's going to be that whole election business. But that's part of everyone's life, not just mine. I hope we handle it well.

Happy 2008 to you and yours. I hope it's a good one for you.