It’s been 10 years since I graduated from high school.

10 years since I last stepped foot in the house that saw me grow up.

10 years since I’ve met the girl that would change my life forever.

That is 120 months. About 521 weeks. 3650 days. 87600 hours. You get the point.

If you would’ve told me that I would’ve been able to be where I’m at in just 10 years, I wouldn’t have believed you. My family and I were homeless for three days, and I never once felt that way. Granted, we were fortunate to go from one hotel to the other, but sheesh, calling it homeless, just seems wrong now. I know I’ve said many times that I wouldn’t change anything in my past, but I have been thinking about it for quite some time, and I think I’m wrong to say that.

That day hasn’t come yet, but I know there will be a day that happens that I will wish for more time. More time to spend and annoy the heck out of my family. More time to spend getting to know the girl that would eventually become the woman of my future. More time getting to enjoy my time as an 18-year-old without real responsibilities. I was in such a rush to get older that I missed out on some real opportunity to get to know who I was becoming. Before 2010, I thought I knew who I was. Looking back, I think that I knew who I was until I got punched in the face by the world. Then it’s like I suddenly forgot everything that I thought I knew before.

I’ve heard the phrase that says something like, “you’re nothing until you got nothing and build up to something.” I think that may or not be whatever happened to me. I lost myself for a pretty long time. Granted, I had many great memories and was a part of a bunch of extreme shenanigans, so it wasn’t all for nothing. I’d make those mistakes all over again if you ask me right now because I know how my life would still end up. I just know that I took some weeks for granted, took some days for granted, and damn sure took some hours for granted.

2010 Christian didn’t know any better.

2010 Christian wasn’t sure what was going to come up.

The first half of 2010 Christian envisioned a much different second half of 2010.

2010 will be the year that will have impacted my life the most. The year that I’ll be able to tell my kids about and their grandkids. Maybe it’ll be the year that has the least amount of pictures because I lost specific photos or forgot my login to sites like PhotoBucket or something. It’ll be the year where that caused me so much trauma I ran away from for so long, but the year that I can thank God for because it shaped everything for me.