Thursday’s Thoughts ~ Ten Years…

This week’s breaking news story about the three young women (and a child) who were rescued after being kidnapped and held captive for over ten years was a shocker!  I can’t begin to imagine the years of torture and anguish these women must have endured!  As far as I’m concerned, the individual responsible for stealing ten years of these women’s lives doesn’t deserve to live.  Life in prison is too easy of a price to pay, but I’m getting a bit off subject here…

Today I want to talk about ten years, and what a difference ten years can make in one’s life.

Our family in 1991

Thinking about the plight of these women started me thinking about the years of my life, and how much I’d have missed if ten years were suddenly snatched away.  A lot can, and usually does, happen in ten years.  For instance, let’s look at the last ten years.

Ten years ago I was 48 years old.  48 sounds so much younger than 58–and it is!  I had much more energy and stamina back then.  I was still working at my job as a paraprofessional, and loving it.  I was volunteering at the local animal shelter after work and on weekends, too!  I was busy, busy, busy.  These days, it’s all I can do to keep my house cleaned and tend to our garden.  What a difference ten years makes!

Ten years ago, Ed was working at a hospital 55 miles from home and holding down a second job, too!  He was also building a game house on the weekends!  Talk about energy and stamina, Ed had it going on back then!  Oh, and that game house Ed was building?  Neither of us ever dreamed that ten years later, we’d be living in it!

Our family cir. 2001

Ten years ago our  youngest was just about to graduate from high school, and our oldest was basically still a newlywed, having been married less than two years.  Our middle child had been trying to find his way in this world, and giving his parents lots of gray hairs in the process.  Thankfully, he would soon meet his wife-to-be and begin the process of growing up and settling down.

Ten years ago there were no grandchildren!  Holidays and family gatherings were a lot more quiet, but a lot less exciting.  I never dreamed, back then, that we’d have three grandchildren here, and another on the way, within ten years!

As I switch gears and begin to look forward, it’s a sobering thought what the next ten years will bring.  Ed and I are now entering the phase of life that we still vividly remember watching our parents go through.  We’re acutely aware that our time here on earth is even more precious and limited.

I know Ed and I will have aged ten more years, and our energy and stamina will have declined even more.  Health problems will most likely be more of an issue.

Our family in 2013

Here’s what I hope will be happening in ten years:  I hope Ed and I will still be alive and in reasonably good health!  I hope Ed will have been retired for several years!  I hope to be drawing a small retirement check from my job at the school.  I hope Ed and I will be able to draw some of the Social Security we spent over forty years paying into!  I hope our gardening endeavors will be on a much smaller basis by then–perhaps a little container gardening in the yard.

We’ll probably be exiting the “raising chickens phase” of life because our chicken coop will need to be replaced by then.  I love cats, so I’ll probably still have one–but only one, instead of a dozen!  Pet food is too expensive.

Our grandchildren will be ages 16, 14, almost 12, and their parents will be struggling to survive those “teen years”!  The grandchild we’re expecting now will be almost 10.  Will there be other “grands”?  I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Wow!  Looking at the pictures in this post really hits close to home.  Ten years sure does make a lot of difference, doesn’t it?!