A Piece Of My Heart

The 2010s in Review

Hey hey heyyy!!! There are only three days remaining in this decade.

Let me say that again.

There are only THREE days remaining in this DECADE!

I mean ... what?!

I don't know quite what to say .. so much has happened since January 1st, 2010! I was 15 years old in 2010. I had not found WDC yet. I was still in high school for Pete's sake! Let's take a little walk down memory lane at some of the milestones over the past 10 years:

June 12, 2011
(clearly nothing note-worthy happened in the first year of the decade if this is the first event I thought of...)
I joined WDC! I was 16 and a half years old and thought I was such a prolific writer because I had written a story about a unicorn and a rat in an invisible kingdom in the back of my Gifted and Talented class instead of paying attention like I was supposed to be doing. Then I moved on to a novel about something I knew nothing about - a Secret Service agent in the White House. I taped two composition notebooks together and filled them both with purple-ink scrawl. When I finally got access to a computer, I laboriously transcribed my flawless story and threw it online for the world to see. The anonymity of WDC was kind of cool. I didn't have to be a child here. I could pretend I was the character in my story, a strong, confident, beautiful agent of the secret service sharing my real life story. Needless to say, I learned more than I bargained for.

May 18, 2013
I graduated high school - there's a video of it online I think if you search hard enough. The whole graduating class performed a hula to thank our parents and teachers for supporting our journey, but there weren't enough boys in my class to go around so I was one of the girls without a partner who danced alone on the sidelines.

September 4, 2014
After a tumultuous first year of college, I found my soulmate. This was the date we first saw each other in person, though I can't say I loved him at first sight. That came later. But we've been together ever since

June 2, 2016
While I was studying abroad in Australia, my man bought our house! It was in a horrific state when we bought it. The walls were caked in cigarette smoke from the previous owners and the carpet was basically one huge hairball. Luckily, I was diving on the Great Barrier Reef while my man cleaned the place up and made it a home for us. I officially moved in in July.

Late 2016?
Sometime after we bought the house, we adopted our first dog together! We took Roo the shih tzu in when my man's aunt could no longer care for her and she's been our little snuggle bug ever since.

May 21, 2017
I graduated college! Woop! The ceremony was outside and I was boiling in my black gown, but it was all worth it A very special day, but even now, it seems so long ago!

September 19, 2018
Since graduating college, I got my foot in the door of local government with an internship, but on September 19th, I was officially hired! My pay tripled from my internship to my real job, and for the first time, I felt stable. I was on the right track and doing a job I loved. I was also saving money finally, which made me able to contribute to the household and not feel so guilty that my man was holding us up financially.

November 2018
I bought my first car! A black Jeep Cherokee 2019 Limited Her name's Rosie, and she's a beauty!

May 2019
I finished my Environmental Education Certificate! A year long process involving online classes and several field trips, but worth it because it will help me in my career.

May 18, 2019
We made another big decision and adopted another dog! Joy was from a local rescue - you can read more about her here: "A Happy Home"  She was a handful at first and I wasn't sure she would be a good fit for our home. But then she and Roo started playing and chasing each other in the yard, and I knew she had to stay. Since we first brought her home as a foster, she's settled into our routine and is a cuddle bug just like Roo!

October 1, 2019
My job went from 30 hours a week to 40 hours a week! Woohoo! This meant I was able to save even more money and have real vacation days!

Those dates sum up the important milestones I can think of at the moment. I'm excited to see what the next ten years will bring!

Every month this past year, I kept up with posting my monthly writing accomplishments in this blog as well for the sole purpose than when it came time to write this post I'm writing now, I will have a timeline of what I wrote throughout the year and something to remind myself of what I can do when I put my mind to it Let's take a look:

January 8th: "The Winning Color" , short story, 1407 words, Grand Prize, 2019 Quill Awards Nominee
January 8th: "Grandmasters Through History" , non-fiction, 1233 words
January 17th: "Anxiety" , double acrostic, Winning Entry
January 21st: "Red Wing" , free verse, Winning Entry
February 7th: "Vestiges of Life" , free verse
February 9th: "Kona Coffee" , free verse
February 16th: "The Symptoms of Repression" , non-fiction, 1295 words
February 17th: "Follow Me to the Horizon" , free verse, Winning Entry
March 5th: "Perspective" , haiku
March 10th: "Enlightenment" , free verse
March 10th: "The Age of Enlightenment" , non-fiction, 2182 words
March 17th: "Winter Glass" , haiku
March 19th: "The Raucous Song of Spring" , Lady's Slipper, Honorable Mention
March 28th: "Body Memory" , free verse, Winning Entry, 2019 Quill Awards Nominee
March 29th: "Fleeting Moments" , haiku series
April 1st: "Callused Hands" , free verse, Winning Entry, 2019 Quill Awards Nominee
April 4th: "Mud." , free verse, Third Place
April 9th: "He Was Too Young" , short story, 1998 words
April 27th: "The Golden Age" , short story series, unfinished
May 12th: "Home Again" , free verse, Winning Entry
May 12th: "As Hard As Soft" , free verse
May 14th: "Sanguinaria canadensis" , free verse
June 7th: "The Cast" , haiku
June 20th, "Belonging" , non-fiction, 1633 words
June 20th: "In the sea, I leave a piece of me" , free verse
July 4th: "All the Things You've Given Me" , free verse, Winning Entry, 2019 Quill Awards Nominee
July 21st: "Over the Coral Jewels" , free verse
August 25th: "How Often?" , free verse, Winning Entry
September 2nd: "Patches of Red - Rewrite" , free verse, Winning Entry
September 2nd: "Diptera's Prize" , short story, 432 words, Second Place
September 5th: "Can't Stop The Feeling" , short story, 1917 words
October 20th: "Fall in Focus" , Imayo, Honorable Mention
October 26th: "A Happy Home" , short story, 999 words, 2019 Quill Awards Nominee
November 24th: "Attention Seeker" , flash fiction, 75 words
December 27th: "Another Year Gone By" , Marianne
December 28th: "Eulogy to the Place that Raised Me" , free verse

Not bad I was definitely more productive at the start of the year, but still managed to write something every month.

Alrighty! I think I've written long enough. I'll see you again in 2020! Here's to the next ten years!

Em