The twenty-year cycle

2014 has bitten the dust without me even getting a chance to sit down and muse about it. Do I have a lot to say about it? Not really. What I can say, though, is that 2014 was:

- Our first full year as Seattleites. Winter, spring, summer, autumn, and back to winter. My favourite part? Always summer. Spring, a close second. Winter blows. The weather here is like that mean boyfriend who is also capable of treating you like a princess... but more often mean. That's Seattle. The climate does not agree with me for a good chunk of the year, but now that we've had two whole summers here? When it's summer, I can't think of a better place in the world to be. It's stunning and perfect, and a damn good thing it exists or I'd possibly be on the next plane outta here.

- A good time to revisit grunge. The EMP Museum has had a great Nirvana and grunge exhibition all year long, which we've ended up seeing a few times (whenever we've gone to check out newer exhibitions, we always find ourselves back in the Nirvana section). Twenty years since Kurt Cobain's death really only feels like ten years - at the most.

- My first full year back in the workforce since P was born, even if just part-time. Have I figured out what I want to do with my life, career-wise? Not yet, but contributing a few extra dollars to the household has done wonders for my self-seteem, even if it's only a small amount of money.

- The year I began wearing liquid eyeliner again. I'm not sure why I ever stopped, but I wore it often when I was a teenager. It's a classic look, right?

- The year I began wearing Converse again. I used to live in Chucks back in the day, but moved away into other kinds of sneakers for some reason. Like liquid eyeliner, these sneakers began to appeal to me again, and now I can't imagine not putting them on most days - at least until summer is back.

In short, 2014 was the year of 1994 for me, the year I began revisiting my eighteen-year-old self. Perhaps it's an early mid-age crisis. Perhaps I'll get my nose re-pierced next. I'm still working on a tattoo design, so why not? I think I'll draw the line at Doc Marten boots though. I spent enough years wearing those, so I'll leave them for the real eighteen-year-olds to party in.

My life in review

Being December, most people look back over the past year and reflect. Good? Bad? Bring on the New Year? Be sad to see this one go?

All the magazines use this time of year as the perfect excuse to rehash photos and news stories. Revel once again in the scandals, ogle even more over celebrity transformations.

Last December, I found myself looking back a bit further than just the year, when I found myself scanning my favourite old travel photos.

This week has seen a similar trip down memory lane, courtesy of Facebook. You see, I decided to take a leap and embrace the new timeline format on my profile page. I figured I might as well, if it was going to be forced on us eventually. Plus, it does look rather fetching with the nice large cover photos.

A nifty new feature of the timeline format is that the dates on photos can be changed. This appealed - immensely - to the OCD part of my brain that likes to categorise things into proper chronological sequence. Rather than languishing in a December 2010 album, those travel photos that I'd scanned a year ago are now nicely dispersed along my timeline, neatly prettying up the years from 1999-2003.

Once I'd started, I couldn't stop. I found other old photos that I'd been tagged in over the years, even pics from the mid-2000s (before everyone was on Facebook) that had been added in retrospect. I had to change those dates, too.

Before I knew it, every year from 1999 onwards had been documented on my timeline, along with a few random school photos from the mid-late 80s and early 90s.

Looking at it all, I felt the need to start hiding some of the 'stories' from the timeline. Even though the stories were nothing new, and photos were ones that had always been available in albums for friends to view, it seemed like an overshare and needed culling.

There are the options of adding 'life events' to the timeline, and there are several categories, each broken into further suggestions. I'm sure it's only natural that people will want to add in special times such as graduations, weddings, births of kids... and that's where I draw the line for myself. Facebook has categories such as: New Roommate, New Vehicle, New Eating Habit, Broken Bone, Quit a Habit, Tattoos, Piercings, First Kiss... you get the picture.

Why not just add farts and nose picking to the timeline? Surely everyone wants to know that too?

Maybe it's just me. While I love looking at other friends' photos (I do!) I have very little interest in so many of the potential life events that some other people will no doubt be including on their timeline. I just don't care, and in that same vein, I don't imagine that my friends will be looking at my timeline and annoyed with me for not documenting my various body piercings and drunken antics.

Now that I have my timeline updated and looking pretty, something strange has seeped into the nostalgia factor. It's more than nostalgic. Seeing one's life spread out into neatly compartmentalised categories for others to view, it almost feels like preparation for an obituary. Born in -, graduated in -, married in -, X number of children, worked at -, travelled to -.

Packaged up, ready to go... how convenient.

I'm going to keep the photos on the timeline - because now that I've been thinking about it, the morbid part of my brain thinks what if? If something suddenly happened to me, and I was no longer around, my blog and my Facebook account would probably be the most easily accessible part of me that my daughters may want to access one day. It may be the best way for them to get a sense of my life when I was younger.

Hopefully, it won't come to that. We just never know, though.

Accented

She follows her children around the playground, and offers water to them. She inhales the spring air, and calls out sharply as her youngest climbs too high.

The other women listen to her.

They listen to her one-sided conversations. They note the way her words sound different.

The way her words rise, fall and shift. The slightly different syllable stress. Different vowels.

The different phrases. Intonation.

She is from somewhere else, far away.

The other women wonder where she is from, but they do not ask her.

They also have children to follow, and are busy. Engaging, suggesting, empathising with one another. Cooing. Laughing.

Perhaps they feel too shy to ask her, or embarrassed that they don't recognise her accent.

They stop wondering, and resume their chatting.

*

I used to be amongst those other women.

Not now.

I am the one they observe.

Wonky Reflections

It's the time of year where everybody talks about the year they've had. A good year, an eventful year, an awful year. One to remember always, or a year we'd rather forget. The sort of year that's best forgotten? Well, J and I have had a few of those in recent years. Thankfully, 2010 wasn't one of those. I don't want to bore readers, so the only recaps I'll make is: giving birth to my second gorgeous little girl, and moving to L.A. only months later. Epic!

For some reason, rather than dwelling on the year we've had, I've been thinking back much further. A good decade or so. The other night, I found myself going through my photo albums from 1999-2003. This was the first period of time that J & I lived overseas - in the UK - but I hadn't looked at the photos in quite a while.

Leiden, the Netherlands - 2002

The most obvious thing that struck me was how much younger I looked, but... duh! Ten years will do that. The difference between being twenty-something, and thirty-something is noticeable. Kids will age a person, too.

What else was different? Well, I used to bother wearing a bit of make-up. I used to make an effort. These days, concealer under my eyes - and some mascara with a slick of lipgloss - are about as complex as it gets.

From those photos, I can see that my hair also used to get a bit of attention. Not a lot (I've always been a fairly low-maintenance girl) but the photos indicate a variety of haircuts in that period of time, and some thought appears to have gone into the styling of it before leaving the house. These days, it's all about pony tails... and that's it. My hair is a pretty sad affair.

The differences between now and then aren't just physical.

I used to spend entire afternoons and evenings at pubs.

I used to go clubbing.

I used to go to underground dance parties.

I used to be able to just walk out the door without a thought as to what time I'd be returning.

I used to be able to disappear and lose myself, for a week or two at a time, in various European destinations.

I used to choose to function on only three hours sleep. For me, that's probably the craziest difference, right there. The fact that there were times when I crawled into bed at 4 or 5am, even on days where I might have to get up and go to work. And on the flipside, I used to rarely emerge from bed before 10am on the weekends.

Ah, youth... you were such fun! And so was I.

It's been a nostalgic Christmas for me as I remember those years. As 2011 is just around the corner and people talk of New Year's resolutions, I just listen. I don't do resolutions. I don't see the point in waiting until January to change something I'm not happy with.

I know my NYE won't involve any pubs, clubs, underground dance parties, wine, or cigarettes (amongst other things), but it will probably involve a decent amount of sleep. Broken - yes, I'm sure - but it won't be a late night for me, so I don't care.

Anyhow, expect the odd flash-back travel story here from time to time... and have a great New Year!