Ten years ago

[randy_byers]

It suddenly occurred to me this morning that ten years ago around this time I was falling in love. It was only four months after my TAFF adventures in the UK, and four months later I'd be traveling to Australia for the first time. Magical transformations were in the air.

I have a very good life, but my 40s were really something else: Corflatch, Yap, Chunga, TAFF, Sharee, SFFY and the Hugo, presiding over my niece's wedding, epic Worldcons in Glasgow and Montreal, chairing Corflu Zed, the Brussels/Novacon/SFContario trip shortly after I turned 50, new friends all over the place. We're talking hither and yon. It was when I became most fully myself, for better and worse, but mostly for the better, I think. So far my 50s haven't been quite so eventful, but it's still early days yet.

So here's to all that. Here's to falling in love, whenever that was or will be.

Comments

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

Cheers, mate.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Dude.

[wrdnrd]

I began working at Current Employer 9.5 years ago, and i remember your trip to Australia around that time because V. was talking about Things That Need To Be Done Before Randy's Out Of The Office Forever. Weird to think that i have memories of you before i really got to know you.

This was a reassuring post to read, because sometimes i feel like my 40s are going to be nothing but looking back at my 30s and wondering how i wasted them and how that's going to result in wasting my 40s. I like knowing that someone had grand adventures in their 40s. I like thinking that my 40s can be a time when i become more fully myself.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

When I turned 30 I told my mom (despairingly) that I still felt totally lost. She told me that she was 40 before she started feeling like she had a clue. (Mind you, this was a woman who had raised three kids while working full time, so I'm not sure exactly what clue it was she found. Possibly it was that she had needs of her own.) Whether it was the power of suggestion or what, this is pretty much how it worked out for me too. Not that I figured everything out, but probably more that I settled into myself a little better. I don't know. I was less unhappy.

I do remember that after Sharee and I broke up in 2005, right after I turned 45, I thought I had hit the peak and my life would be all downhill after that. This turned out not to be the case.

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

I was falling in love ten years ago, too. Anniversary obsessive that I am, that just hadn't occurred to me till now, and only at your own remembrance. It was nice having a friend falling in love too, back then.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Yes, it was nice. It was kind of epic.