Four Years

Shh....don't sell me out. I'm breaking my usual code and didn't ask my gal pictured above if I could put her on the blog, but I'm gonna!

The picture above is from four years ago....and it's a picture of our old cube that we shared in grad school. Oh the days of being a research assistant...and how much I still love all my girls I bonded with that year. CD was to our right and CP was on our back wall---and they all knew when I'd arrived to work the minute they heard my standard arrival sigh. ;)

However what you can't see on the laptop screen... is the 2008 election progression. The two of us also had a night course together and we were cuddled up in our cube monitoring results for the election before heading into class.
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All this comes to mind not necessarily because today was also election day....but because early this afternoon my gal pictured above called me to chat on her commute across town....and she was the one who took me down memory lane of the above shared experience.

She also then made this comment "man, think of just how much our lives have changed in the last four years....." And we spent the next 5-10 minutes really pondering and sharing the enormous ways that our lives have altered and yet also remained the same within just four short years. Since it's not my role to share her life, I'll just list the following: We finished our program and passed our comprehensive exams. I met Tall D, got married, moved to Louisiana, took a job in a different field, completely changed and grew as a person, moved back to Oregon, took my dream job that merges both of my fields, got divorced, and am now heading in a new direction. I've traveled extensively across the south, bought a new car, and acquired six crazy animals into my care. My role in my family has changed, my friendships have grown/ended/altered, and I'm heading into a version of my future I would have never imagined. I've learned new skills and taken on new hobbies, I've followed dreams, and pushed myself to new physical realities.

What a difference four years can make.
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This evening I was "that teacher" that wrote election results as they were reported on the board while my students took their second exam. I honestly had a hard time deciding to vote this year, until T gave me a much needed lecture on the fabulous freedom of being able to vote. Instead of voting on my usual three platform items, this year I decided "the big one" based on one solo factor. It took three tries to get my ballot delivered after missing the mail-in cut off date, but somehow I handed it off today and my mixed choices were...well, counted.

Late this evening as I watched the political posts flying across Facebook as the results continued, my own reaction felt more neutral than ever. However I also reflected on a re-election 8 years ago, as Granny and I watched horrified by the country's final decision. As a nation we survived those four years, just as we've made it through the last several years as well. I have faith that we'll make it through four more and then four more after that.....we won't always see the outcomes we want (daily, weekly, monthly, annually), but we have to believe in continuing to push the nation...and ourselves forward.....

....because honestly what a difference four years (or even one day) can make!