What a Difference Ten Years Can Make (07-28-08)

The year was 1998. Titanic was the best picture. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa thrilled the world with their historic homerun race. The Yankees, the Broncos, and the Kentucky Wildcats were world champions and the world celebrated a winter’s Olympics. In that year, most people did not have Internet access in their homes, and those who did got their Internet through dial-up service. You-Tube and My Space were still years away and the cell phone/laptop/text messaging revolution had yet to hit. The world hadn’t even met Harry Potter. Our country’s president was embroiled in scandal, and the twin towers of the World Trade Center still stood tall.

That is just a brief list of some of the facts about 1998. For me, though, I will always remember 1998 as the year I married the love of my life, Tonia Lee Wheeler of Quinter.

And oh, what a difference ten years has made in our lives. As my wife and I celebrated our tenth anniversary this week, we thought about all that has happened in just ten short years.

In 1998, I was still working as a fourth year English teacher at Wheatland high school. We lived a tiny rental house in Oakley, and Tonia was completing her degree at Colby Community College.

In ten years, I have changed jobs four times, and our family has moved to three different residences in three different towns. We have welcomed to our homes three children, two dogs, three cats, two guinea pigs and an assortment of fish. In that time span, we have also said goodbye to several cats, two guinea pigs and an assortment of fish. More memorable, though, it has been these years that has brought the loss of my parents, my last remaining grandparent, as well as two of Tonia’s grandparents and one of her aunts.

In ten years, we have bought and sold several cars and even survived a car wreck.
Over our married life, my wife and I have learned basic home remodeling and built or renovated several rooms in different homes. In ten years, I have become a newspaper columnist, as well as written two full length novels, one full length play, and recently a one-act melodrama. In the same span, Tonia has performed in more than a dozen plays, most recently in a one-act melodrama.

In reflecting over all the changes that our family has experienced in ten years, it occurred to me that most other couples celebrating their ten-year anniversary could probably compile such a list, if not an even longer list of changes and accomplishments. It is both the nature of the early phase of marriage and the nature of our modern American society. Not only have we experienced the usual changes involving new children, pets, and homes, but we also experienced the change in jobs and moves to different towns that are all to common in our culture. The only constant, it seems, is change, and the last ten years have brought many changes in our lives.

We now crave a little stability. We hope to be here for a good long time. One job. One house. Watching our children grow. With any luck, the next ten years should find one child out of college, on more in, one in high school and one in the fifth grade. With good fortune, in the next ten years, our family reunions will center around graduations and weddings, and not around more funerals.

One thing, though, I know for certain. The last ten years have been the happiest and most fulfilling of my life. Thank you, Tonia. I can’t wait to share with you all the wonderful (and not so wonderful) surprises life has in store for us. What a difference ten years can make!