I’ve been thinking, the last couple of days, about the last five years. It has been a wild and crazy ride.

Five years ago was October of 2003. I was knee-deep in my pregnancy with Jackson. It had taken a lot of work to get pregnant and I was soaking up every moment of it. I had enjoyed being pregnant so much with Harrison and was very glad to have the chance to experience it again. In fact, I can remember quite a bit from that time. Harry was dressing up as a pirate for Halloween and we had found the cutest costume at Target. That actually started our love affair with Target Halloween costumes. My parents were in town over Halloween and I remember sitting and chatting with my mom while handing out candy. My dad and Kile had taken Harry out trick-or-treating and it was cold, cold, cold! It had snowed that morning, in fact. It was also around this time that I had found out that my older sister was expecting her second child and I was so excited to be pregnant at the same time as her. It seemed like everything was on it’s way up.

Four years ago, we were still getting used to living in our new house and I was nursing a very tender wound on my soul from losing Jackson. That fall was a rough one and I actually don’t remember a lot of it. I do remember that we weren’t at home for many holidays and that hurt more than I expected it would. It was our first year in our new house and we weren’t here for Halloween or Christmas. Looking back, I’m not sure if we were here for Thanksgiving or not. Like I said, there are a lot of holes from 2004. I do especially remember Halloween though. We were in Elko, taking a portrait of the grandkids on that side of the family for Kile’s parents for Christmas. All the kids dressed in white t-shirts and jeans. The picture turned out so cute, but that visit was a hard one. The election was within days of that trip and Elko is mighty red. We were startled and frustrated by the number of advertisements and robo calls from the Bush campaign. And there was no talking politics with any of his family as their political views were so different than ours. We felt like the odd ones out, to be sure. Harry dressed up as Spider-man (complete with quilted “muscles”) and it was another cold night. In fact, it snowed that evening and the sidewalks were slick. Kile drove around in the van with the side door open so Harry and his cousins could hop out and run up to the doors and then hurry back to the van to get warm. All in all, I look back on that time through gray-tinted glasses. It was not a happy time.

Three years ago was a different story. We were recovering from our miscarriage, but I didn’t feel near the level of depression that I had felt the year before. We had done a bunch of tests to rule out issues and I was on my first month of Clomid. In fact, unbeknownst to us, I would get pregnant the week following Halloween that year. We were in our house that year for Halloween and Harry dressed up as Darth Vader (complete with super-awesome voice-changing mask). I stayed home, as is often my duty, to pass out candy (and blog) while Kile set out with Harry and our neighbors to do a little trick or treating. He brought back a ton of candy which we ate for weeks and weeks afterward. I don’t remember a whole lot from this time, but mostly for good reasons this time. Because it was essentially a good time for us. Our lives were changing and for the better. At long last.

Two years ago, we had a baby in our house once more. Liam had us all charmed and wrapped around his tiny little finger. 2006 had been very good to us and I just plain felt GOOD. That year after Liam was born was pretty danged good, to be honest. I felt good and was taking care of myself and getting exercise and I had friends… what more could I ask for? Harry dressed up as “the boogeyman” from “Scream” that year and we had the cutest velour vampire bunting for Liam to wear. We all hit the streets that year, along with our neighbors, to get the goods. I remember we foolishly did the trick-or-treating before having dinner so that by the time we finished, we were starving. We headed to McDonald’s for a quick fix, Liam still wearing his super-cute costume (come to think of it, I’m not sure how I got him in the carseat in that getup, but I’m sure I figured it out).

One year ago, I was pregnant. I wasn’t expecting to be pregnant, but pregnant I was. Despite issues with hormones, I still felt like things were going great. Even though, unfortunately, my friendships had taken a large hit. It was one year ago that there was a mixup with a Halloween party that we were supposed to be invited to but no one remembered to tell us when it was and so we didn’t go and Harry was BITTERLY disappointed. And I felt awful about it. That incident tainted the holiday, as far as I was concerned. Luckily, Harry rebounded quickly as kids often do and went trick-or-treating dressed as Black Spider-man. Liam even got in on the gig in his plush skunk costume (he was SO FREAKING ADORABLE in that thing). Liam came back home after a trip around the cul-de-sac while Harry and Kile set out to conquer the rest of the neighborhood. We did very well and had more candy afterward than is probably healthy. But, like I said, I was pregnant and happy for the sugar.

And that brings us to today. Three kids. Two costumes (still don’t have one for Evie, nor do I think we will have one. She can probably get away with the skunk getup). Harry as a bloody-skull-faced grim reaper and Liam as a monkey. I imagine we’ll all cruise the cul-de-sac before I come back home with the little ones and hand out candy. Any big life changes on the horizon this year? I doubt it. It’s another election year this year, but the difference between now and 2004 is so stark that it’s almost laughable. Some people might feel differently, but the tone of this election is so much better than it was four years ago. Four years ago I felt so DESPERATE. This year, I feel more confident and less like I’m sitting on the razor’s edge. Which is actually kind of ironic considering the state our nation is in right now. Perhaps I (wrongly) feel insulated from it.

I can’t help but wonder what next year will bring. What costumes will we be seeing on our kids? Liam will be a lot more aware of the holiday. Evie will be old enough to at least cruise the cul-de-sac (and get her own costume, for pity’s sake!). We’ll have a different president. Will we be thinking of moving to a new house? Harry will be in the fourth grade and going on TEN YEARS OLD.

*shudder*

Yeah, I don’t want to play this game anymore.

I was in the eighth grade that year, my last year in public school. Middle school was rough, but I was lucky enough to have some good friends. That was about all that I was lucky enough to have because otherwise, that year was one of the roughest of my young life. And that fall was the cherry on the top.

I was completely awkward.  You know that stage where your arms and legs have been growing faster than the rest of you?  I was tall, gangly, big-footed, skinny and large-boned.  I didn’t know what to do with myself.  I was shy around boys and wouldn’t have interested anyone if I wasn’t because like I said… AWKWARD.

One of my friends was a girl I had known since my days in preschool.  She lived in the same neighborhood, several streets over.  She was a grade behind me in school, despite being a couple weeks older than I was.  Still, it was nice being at the same school (we’d gone to seperate elementary schools) and we often hung out with one another after school.  This clear, sunny Tuesday was no different.

We were up to some sort of mischief that afternoon.  I’m pretty sure it involved a boy.  And I’m pretty sure that boy was the kid who lived across the street from my house.  I thought he was cute.  But I was awful at flirting.  My subtle tactic was either too subtle or not subtle enough.  You know, plus the whole AWKWARD thing.  After our shenanigans (which had involved the telephone… oy vey), my friend’s mother asked if we would mind riding our bikes to the store to pick her up some chicken to fix for dinner.

If there was one thing we liked to do back then, it was ride bikes.  Despite having my own ten-speed, I always borrowed my friend’s mother’s bike.  They had newer mountain bikes and were a lot more fun to ride.  We biked over to Safeway and picked up the requested items.  My friend had a bike rack on back of her bike that we secured our goods to before setting off for home again.  It was starting to get a little on the late side, but not quite late enough to part ways.  We decided to head over to my house to do some discreet spying on the boy across the street, after my friend dropped off the groceries.

I stood out in the driveway with the bikes while she ran into the house.  The sun was getting low in the horizon, but no clouds obscured it on this day.  My friend was just running back out to the driveway when it started.  A rumbling off in the distance that got louder and closer until it was rolling underneath our feet.  Having grown up in California, I was no stranger to earthquakes, but I was used to them tapering off after a few seconds.  This earthquake didn’t taper off.  Instead, it grew larger and more ferocious.  I had the fleeting thought of, “What if this doesn’t stop?  What if it gets a lot worse?”

My friend and I tossed our bikes down and for whatever reason ran into the middle of the quiet street.  We were laughing at this point.  I’m not sure what we were laughing at.  It felt like we were jumping up and down, like on a trampoline, and maybe we were.  Or maybe that was just the earth bouncing us around like a couple of bouncy balls.  It seemed like it went on forever.  In actuality, it was more like 15 seconds.

As soon as the shaking stopped, we turned to see a labrador retriever run up to us.  We screamed, not because we were scared but because our nerves were shot and we were feeling rattled.  (Pun intended.)  We ran into my friend’s house to see if her mother was okay.  She was; she had just shut the refrigerator after putting away the groceries.  Things all over the house had fallen down, broken, cracked.  There were several aftershocks that sent us back outside where we felt it was “safe”.

After a few minutes, we decided to ride our bikes back to my house and see how things were over there.  I will admit, immaturely, we were excited at the notion that this would make seeing the boy across the street much easier since everyone in the neighborhood was standing outside right now, listening to the news on their car radios.  The scope of this earthquake was still beyond us.

At my house, the story was much the same.  Things had fallen, broken, cracked.  Our pool in the backyard had sloshed around so badly that half of the water was gone.  My mom reported watching the chandelier in the dining room swing back and forth so violently that she worried it would break loose and crash through the front windows.  I was starting to feel more shaken.  Especially once reports started filtering in, little by little.  A freeway had collapsed.  The Bay Bridge had collapsed.  How many people had just died?

That was the start of a very long night.  I didn’t sleep much.  Every aftershock pranced on my nerves, causing my adrenaline to skyrocket.  The power eventually came back on and the night was spent watching the news reports come in, one after the other.  It was horrifying.  Even worse was hearing that what we had just experienced was not “the big one”.  Nope, that was still looming in the future like the boogeyman.

The Loma Prieta earthquake struck the Bay Area at 5:04pm on Tuesday, October 17, 1989.  That was NINETEEN years ago.  I remember it like it was just yesterday.   To those who didn’t live in the area, the details may be surprising.  The epicenter was located far closer to where we lived and Santa Cruz than it was to San Francisco.  More lives were spared because of the World Series, featuring the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants, and the number of people who had either left work early to watch the game or stayed late for viewing parties.  That meant less people on the roads, where the damage was severe.

Now, I can’t feel a ripple without having that stab of fear.  I immediately think, “Will it stop?  Will it get worse?”  The memories of 5:04pm live on.  Did you live in the Bay Area in 1989?  Do you remember this earthquake?  What were your experiences?

It started out not unlike every other morning.  The routine has been the same for years.  Kile gets up with his alarm between 5:30 and 6:00am (sometimes later, but not on this morning).  He would have his bathroom time and then take a long, steamy shower.  Why does he always try to boil his skin off?  Anyhow, it’s beside the point.  He gets dressed and that’s when I get out of bed, throw on my robe and slippers, etc and we go out into the living room to have breakfast, watch the Today Show and have a few minutes together before he has to leave for work.

It was such a nice morning, I remember thinking.  The sun was out, filtering through the windows.  The sky was clear.  It was a perfect day.  Not too warm, not too cool.  Perfect.  Or so I thought.

On this particular morning, Kile exited the master bedroom of our two bedroom apartment ahead of me and turned the television on.  I came out a minute later, a question on my lips (who knows what about?).  The question died as I stopped in front of the television, next to Kile who was also staring at the screen.  What was I looking at?  Was this a movie?  I struggled to orient myself as my eyes took in the scene.  A city… New York?  Buildings on fire.  No, not just any buildings.  The World Trade Center.  Both of them.  Why?  How?

Harry was not quite two years old and still asleep in the crib in his room.  I was free to sit, slack jawed before the television, and try to soak in what exactly was going on.  A plane had crashed into the towers.  Wait, TWO planes.  What the heck?  What did that mean?  Obviously it was on purpose.  But who?

Then a plane crashed into the Pentagon and that’s when things got really serious.  I’m a little muddy on the timeline of events.  It was seven years ago, after all.

Kile hung around as we watched in horror.  As the first tower came crashing down.  He didn’t believe it at first, but I saw the top of the tower fall.  We both had the same thought, “All those people…“  Eventually, Kile did leave for work.  I’m still amazed that he did.  I couldn’t have concentrated if I were him.  But maybe he needed the distraction.  Still, he told me that the whole office listened to the radio and watched TV all day long.  Not a lot of work got done.

That was pretty much the same story at home.  Harry, still so little, got very little attention all day long.  He was fed and cared for but my attention was on the television.  I couldn’t stop watching the screen, listening to the anchors as they gave us more and more information.  I soaked it in, unable to look away.  The horror was so fresh and so foreign.  What did this mean for our future?  Were we at war?  Would we ever be safe again?

I knew something was different from then on, but I didn’t know exactly what.  I couldn’t have predicted the change that happened in our country after that fateful day.  In so many ways, I’m so disappointed.  I thought we were better than this.  Stronger than this.  After the attacks, I was so proud to display a flag and put a “United We Stand” bumper sticker on our new van.  I watched Congress sing “God Bless America” on the steps of the Capital and for that moment, there were no parties.  No Republicans and no Democrats and I felt a stirring of hope.  Maybe if we could come together, then it wouldn’t be so bad after all.

It’s laughable now that I thought that.

Here it is, seven years later.  In so many ways, our great nation is more divided than it was at the beginning of that normal morning that wasn’t.  And sometimes I wonder, will we ever recover?