My life, at five year intervals

About 40 years ago I was 4, and . . .

1. Nearly died from a case of neglected pneumonia.
2. Suddenly had a sibling.

About 35 years ago I was 9, and . . .

1. Spent far too much time in bed, tethered to an oxygen tank by a catheter.
2. Nearly flunked a grade in school because I was absent for too many days.
3. Learned how to shelve books according to Dewey.
4. Stayed overnight with my grandparents a lot, to avoid the continual noise and squabbling generated between my brothers, and between my father and my Brother-from-Hell.

About 30 years ago I was 14, and . . .

1. Started my freshman year of high school.
2. Began to realize that I wasn’t much liked by a lot of people in my school, and that I didn’t much like them, either.
3. Ran the high-school library workroom because the librarian was too sick to do it, and either nobody else knew how or had the time.
4. Worked at the Last Picture Show as a projectionist.

About 25 years ago I was 19, and . . .

1. Hung out on the fringes of the freaks and anarchists who took over the university’s Student’s Association that year.
2. Kept my life carefully compartmented, because I didn’t want my several acquaintances to be able to compare notes.
3. Went on my first date.
4. Began to admit to myself that I’d never Go Home Again.

About 20 years ago I was 24, and . . .

1. Worked as an over-educated and under-employed secretary.
2. Proposed to my Once and Future Wyfe just as soon as she decided to divorce her first husband.
3. Barely beginning to recover from the death of my until-then best friend.
4. Square-danced three or four nights a week.

About 15 years ago I was 29, and . . .

1. Adjusting to having a child of my own.
2. Lived in a neighborhood that was declining toward a war zone.
3. Took my first trip up the Blue Ridge Parkway.
4. Worried about the beginning of the New Depression.

About 10 years ago I was 34, and . . .

1. Lived in a dump with a great address and location.
2. Fretting because my Once and Future Wyfe had been laid off at NCNB.
3. Transferred away from a boss whose ethics and abilities I couldn’t respect, to a job I could do well and enjoy.
4. Spent lots of time on bbs conferences.

About 5 years ago I was 39, and . . .

1. Was named by the alt.weekly newspaper as one of the Best of Austin for the year.
2. Went into exile north of Koenig Lane for fourteen months.
3. Had Puberty move in with us, unexpectedly and early.
4. Decided that my Once and Future Wyfe’s twentieth high-school reunion was much more fun than mine had been.

About 2 years ago I was 42, and . . .

1. Enjoyed the fun of going to yard sales and selling the booty on eBay.
2. Busted back down to helpdesk geek from data service manager and IT team leader.
3. After a year of nominal ownership, dove deep into the project of owning (and fixing) and Old House.
4. Started work at a job they never should have offered me, and that I never should have taken.

Now I am 44, and . . .

1. Adjusting to having a baby in the house again.
2. Merely underemployed after suffering through a year of unemployment.
3. Finally repaired the leak in the roof, after four years of running warfare.
4. Have a Wyfe and an OSO whom I love.

Swaziland is heated with a silver scuba mask.  Fnord.