Many people like to think about the previous year on New Year's day. There also alot of people that think about the preceding year on their birthday. Having your birthday on the second day of the year is a double whammy of annual contemplation. This morning I started thinking about what I had done on my birthdays over the last ten years. So on this day in:
1995 - I had arrived in Ft. Polk, LA a couple of weeks before. I was fresh out of basic training and this was my first duty station. I didn't know anyone there yet and we were getting ready for a deployment to Haiti. I felt very alone.
1996 - My best friend had come down to visit me at Ft. Polk. We had gone to get our first tattoos together a couple of days before. We decided to go to Houston and stopped in to visit his aunt that lived there. I get a surprise phone call from my parents while we're at his aunt's. Since I didn't have a phone in the barracks this was possibly the first time they had ever been able to call me since I went into the army.
1997 - I've been in Korea for about 8 months. The drinking age for soldiers there was 20, so turning 21 wasn't much of an event. I decided to stay up on the 1st until midnight to have a toast to myself anyway. I don't remember exactly what I did that day, but I'm sure I spent some time in the Lair (one guy's room that we always drank and watched movies in) with my buddies. When I arrived in my platoon in Korea, for the first time in my life I felt like I immediately fit in with a group of people. So to Ring, Rosales, Terry, Sgt. Hood, Chang, Ortiz and all the rest of the platoon we renamed the Reservoir Dogs thank you for that monumental year in my life.
1998 - I'm stationed in Ft. Drum, NY but I'm home on leave for the holidays. I had met my ex-fiance a week before. My best friend drove me back to Ft. Drum the next day (I believe). Being home is a wonderful thing.
1999 - I'm home. I'm working at Subway. I'm going to school. I'm dating the ex-fiance. I have no idea what I actually did on that day but I know I saw my family.
2000 - I'm still in school. I'm still dating the ex. I'm now working for a web-based computer hardware reseller. I have no idea what I actually did that day.
2001 - I'm no longer with the ex. I'm done with school and working with one of my best friends from school. Once again, I don't know what I did that day.
2002 - I have no job because I was laid off. Yet again I don't know what I did that day.
2003 - I'm working at the computer hardware place again because I desperately needed a job. I get a call from my current boss and she tells me that I'm getting the job.
2004 - I'm in San Antonio, TX for work. My boss is there along with a couple other co-workers. I didn't get to see my family for the first time since 98 but they are family enough. I believe we had sushi and chinese that night.
I don't like not being able to remember what I did on the birthdays of the years I was home. So today I want to do something that I'll be able to remember. I have no idea what that is though. Right now I'm supposed to be playing paintball, but apparently I decided to blow that off. I'll come up with something.
3 comments:
Very Impressive that you remember all those b-days. I can't remember as far as last week.
Hey, I only remember my 20th birthday. We were having an ice storm in Portland, and I had to wake up before dawn to go to work, I sat down on the toilet to go pee, and found to my horror that one of my (all male) roommates had pissed all over the toilet seat. Suddenly, I was not the only one awake before dawn.
I guess I'm lucky that I've had so many memorable birthdays. I'm still irritated with myself for not doing a damn thing this year.
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