All over Facebook people were like "where were you a decade ago?" and posting their pictures from 2009/2010 in comparison to now. I thought it would be fun so I looked up my photos from 2009. There weren't many, and I was dismayed at what I found, as they were all pictures from my wedding. I was making the mistake of a lifetime, and suddenly all the memories came rushing back.
The last decade for me has been a transformative one. It's also been a gut-wrenchingly painful one. I entered 2010 freshly married and for the first six years of the decade continued existing in a progressively deteriorating abusive relationship. Then came what I dub the "year of hell" when the marriage finally imploded and I suddenly had to juggle two jobs, school, internships, divorce, therapy, graduation, board exams, and ultimately moving across the state to a strange city all alone to start everything over. It was an essential shift and I definitely needed out of that relationship, but it hurt like hell going through it. Ever since then, I've been slowly rebuilding. There have been ups and downs along the way. I lost my Grandpa. I rescued a lovely little furbaby guinea pig who saw me through most of the decade before she passed. Overall, however, I'm definitely coming out of the decade in a better place than I was going in.
So no, I won't be sharing pictures from a decade ago on social media. I wish I could reach through the photo albums to slap myself of a decade ago across the face. I wish I had never gone through with that marriage. I wish I had the strength to leave it when I felt I needed to instead of waiting it out for so long. I wish I had done a lot of things differently this last decade.
Of course, if I hadn't gone through all that, I would have never felt the drive to improve my situation, to go back to school, to stumble into a career that I love. So it's a bit of a catch-22. I regret a lot of things, but I also wouldn't be where I am without it those things. Go figure.
Here's hoping the next decade doesn't hurt as bad. *knocks on wood*
