Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Forgetting in 5 Minutes

I'm participating in Reverb 10 for the month of December. Each day has a new prompt to encourage participants to reflect on 2010 and manifest what’s next in 2011.
December 15 – 5 Minutes.  Imagine you will completely lose your memory of 2010 in five minutes. Set an alarm for five minutes and capture the things you most want to remember about 2010. (Author: Patti Digh)
I don't like this one that much.  My simple answer is that it wouldn't matter too much because now I have this blog!  I could just read this to remember things. 

In terms of what I'll remember about 2010 many years from now, far and away I would guess it would be knowing it was the year I qualified for Boston.  And the year I paced my friend for White Rock.  Strangely enough I can still name all the marathons I've done (about a dozen) and what month and year I ran them.  So both marathons this year will probably stick in my mind. 

Maybe that's a better starting point to determine what I'll remember about 2010.  What do I remember about 2006?  2003?  Some other random past years?  When I tend to look back at past years, the things I remember are (1) family weddings, (2) deaths, (3) births, (4) big vacations and (5) marathons.  And I guess some major news events (but even those, sometimes I don't really remember exactly what year it was). 

There were no close family weddings this year.  I hopefully will forget about how my heart got broken this year (just last month actually) with the big engagement.  Is it just me, or is it starting to feel a little like they're flaunting it in my face?  Sigh.  It still hurts. 

Fortunately there were also no deaths of anyone in our close family.  I'll less happily remember 2010 as the year someone in my close family had some fairly major health issues.  I didn't write about that much here, but touched on it in September when the aftermath of the May surgery became apparent.  Very stressful.  And it was the year the sister of one of my very best friends found out she has stage 4 (non-smoker) lung cancer.  She's younger than us and has a very young daughter, so it seems particularly tragic, but so far her treatment is going well, it doesn't seem to be advancing much more, which is very good. 

More happily, 2010 was the year my cousin came to Dallas to have his baby, who then had open heart surgery a few days later.  He and his family were with us for Thanksgiving, making the holiday extra-special, and we had lots of fun working out and running with cousin and getting to spend more time with him.  And their baby is doing well now, already 3 weeks old and out of the hospital, though he will need more operations in the coming years.  But his healthy birth and swift recovery are definitely stand-out things from 2010. 

I'll definitely remember 2010 as the year I finally got to go to Russia.  Somewhere I'd dreamed of going since at least junior high.  Going back to Sweden was also great, plus our vacation time on the east coast.  That trip is certainly well-preserved in photos, but it's also something I remember in mental pictures, inside jokes with my husband, and new friendships.  One of the most amazing parts of the year for me. 

So I'm happy to report that most of my 2010 memories will be positive.  Hopefully the negative things, like some drama at work and some missed PR attempts (including a couple crash and burn races) will fade with time.

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