Anniversaries Are A Big Deal To Me

I would imagine that it is fair to say most people don't like change. We are creatures of habit and change shakes up our sense of normalcy. However, some of us deal with it better than others and when I was a child, I did not handle change well at all. There are some things I look back on and think, "wow, you were really silly about that, Sarah".

Another phenomenon that I am guessing doesn't just affect me is the perception of time. Have you ever realized a big milestone was coming up and think, "how has already been that long since such-and-such happened"? Just me?

Believe it or not, these two things actually have something in common.

When I turned 10 years old, it was a big birthday. First year in double digits and the end of my first decade. Except, I didn't remember about half of that first decade. When I think about how much changed in the next decade, it almost makes my head spin. A lot changes in our lives in our second decade.

The older I got, I did get better with change. I still don't like it, but it doesn't break my heart like it used to. Some of the biggest changes I had to work through were friendships breaking up because friends moved or moved on. I had a lot of people move in and out of my life when I was a kid. Probably nothing unusual, I'm pretty sure what I experienced is just about normal, but remember, I REALLY didn't like change and it affected me in big ways, so it seemed like everyone left.

My experiences and my perception of those experiences make it a big deal when someone sticks around. I'm coming up on 15 years of friendship with one of my best friends and I'm somewhere around that with another. One of our pastors has been at my church almost 10 years. My co-op lasted 10 years. I do think that I pay more attention to things like this because of my need for things and people to stick around.

Now, those are all milestones, but what about significant events that you lived through? Or things from when you were a kid that are now 10, 20 years old? I'm a big baseball fan and I was old enough to pay attention when Miguel Cabrera on the Detroit Tigers won the Triple Crown in 2012. (For those who don't know, that's a huge award that hadn't been won 45 years before Cabrera did it. It's kind of a big deal :) Now we are closer to the ten year anniversary of him winning it than we are to when it actually happened. I'm closer to ten years of being fine after a health scare than I am to when I was sick.

Movies blow my mind. A movie is made and you always see the actors at that specific age. To you, when you watch that movie, they are exactly the same. (You might be thinking, "of course, Sarah", but bear with me.) I grew up with the Narnia movies. I just realized that the guy who played Peter (and was the oldest of the four kids) is going to be 33 this year. That is crazy to think about. Movies that I was excited to see when they got released are quickly becoming 10 years old. I watched the release of High School Musical 2 on Disney Channel with my friend! That was 10 years in 2017.

People who are older than me might be laughing a little bit and that's okay. I'm sure the novelty will wear off as I get older but this is all new for me and more than a little weird. My perception of time is such that it doesn't seem possible that ten years have passed, while at the same time, so much has changed that it seems even longer in some respects.

Can you relate to this at all? What was the first big milestone for you? Was it some number of years after high school graduation? Getting your license? Tell me in the comments!!!