10 Years Ago

I had one of those rare moments when all was quite and I could hear myself think--ok, it was when I was in the shower. (Maybe this is why I've started taking longer showers.) So, during my long shower I started thinking how it has now been 10 years since I lived in France. 10 years ago, I was living in Versailles as a missionary. I spent Christmas Eve at a Cathedral in Paris for Christmas Mass. We had tried to get into Notre-Dame de Paris, but "no room at the inn." I remember riding back to our apartment down Les Champs-Elysee toward l'Arc de Triumph and looking at all the lights in the trees that lined the streets. It was beautiful. We spent the next day exchanging small gifts and eating a 10 course meal. (Not exagerating--10 full courses! Oh, it was a lot of food. Delicious food, though.) I also remember talking to my parents on the phone and wanting to talk to all my brothers and sisters so bad that I slept on the couch so that I'd hear the phone ring at some crazy hour like 3:30 am, but I was so tired and groggy that I didn't get to talk much--I just wanted to be able to go back to sleep.

It's funny that even though I know time has gone by--I see it everyday in the fact that I have 3 growing kids--I'm still shocked to realize that it's been 10 years. It just sounds like so long ago, when it doesn't feel like it's been that long ago. I still talk to college buddies, and it seems like it wasn't all that long ago we were doing crazy things like working at a Haunted Forest one freezing cold night (shout out to J & Melissa!), driving 8 hours round trip in the middle of the night to see boys (Yup, Melissa and J again), going sledding at the sanddunes (you know it J & Kat!), staying up to 3 am playing harts, phase 10, etc and then making pancakes (we had to outlaw phase 10 after many unfortunate incidents involving slammed doors, shouting names that were not given to us by our mothers, and overall annoyances), and-oh yeah-going to classes.

I'm getting old.