10 Years

This year I’m marking a few major events. Hubbo will have a milestone birthday and I’ll likely return home to Long Island later this year for my 20th high school reunion. They’re both big events but, in the grand scheme of things, not as big as what happened in 1997. Over the course of about 3 months that year my life was turned upside down. Thankfully, when everything settled down, I was much better off.

In June of 1997 I was in a pretty good place. My dh, myself and our beautiful baby girl were living in a nice (if unspectacular) apartment in Long Island. We had good jobs and great friends. Everything was pretty settled.

I was excited because I had just registered for the last few classes I’d need for my Masters degree. Because the coursework was close to completion, we had decided that it was time to leave the safe job that I’d held for 7 years and get a job in my chosen profession – a library job. On June 4th, as I drove along the Long Island Expressway, I was really excited because I was going on my first interview. Suddenly, traffic stopped and I looked up in my rearview mirror in time to see that the car behind me wasn’t stopping. My car, the first I’d ever bought and which I was pretty attached to, was totaled. Thankfully, I was fine and, more importantly, so was my darling DQ who was strapped securely in her car seat.

The things that stick in your memory during stressful times can be odd. I remember that we made the traffic report on the radio that day because my accident happened during rush hour where the Cross Island Parkway intersects with the LIE. It’s the perfect place to really screw up traffic badly. I remember the people flipping me off as they drove by – as if I was holding up traffic on purpose. I remember smiling a lot at my baby girl so that she wouldn’t be afraid. I also remember that I made it to the interview that afternoon (although I was quite late) and that as I walked back to my inlaw’s place after it I ran – quite literally – into Michael Richards (of Seinfeld) who was trying to avoid his fans. All of that is as fresh in my memory as the day it happened.

By the time I picked up the new car (shiny and red) a little over a week later I was looking at more change than I had ever imagined. My husband had accepted a promotion and, as part of the deal, we were preparing to move to Virginia! I had always assumed that I'd live on Long Island forever so it was quite a shock and really exciting all at once. Over the next month I quit my job, made arrangements to complete my degree from afar, said goodbye to our families, and had everything we owned shipped to Virginia. The adventure began and we wouldn't be truly settled anywhere again until nearly Thanksgiving.