10 Things That Changed in the First 10 Years of Jennie Smash

So, last month was my 10-year anniversary of having this here blog, and in my now-typical fashion, I failed to commemorate it, because I was busy writing things for money and/or sleeping.

In the past year or two, I’ve sometimes thought about rolling up the old blog for good, or refocusing it on something more, er, focused. For the past 10 years, I’ve kept this blog largely in the manner of Victorian daybooks, or a 12-year-old’s diary: in other words, for fun, and without any real unifying theme.

That makes it kind of fun to go over my old posts, and remember how I was at the time. My first post, for example, was about how pissed off I was. About what, we do not know — it is lost to sands of time and the internet, or something.

In short, even though some of the old writing is embarrassing, I like having the time capsule. So I’ll probably keep on blogging sporadically, until I go on a diet, and then I’ll blog every day for month.

Here’s where I’d put a transition, if I were writing this for money. And now, in no particular order, here’s what’s changed in my life over the past ten years! (Trumpets blare.)

1. I write stuff for money. OK, technically, my job ten years ago involved some writing, but bylines were few and far between, and I mostly moved content from one place to another and summarized it.

2. I’m married. In 2003, my longest post-college relationship was about three weeks long. My friend and traveling companion Adam has put up with my ever-migrating pile of shoes and sweaters and tendency to talk to myself for five years.

3. I live in New York. In 2005, I ran away from home at the age of 29. I think everyone is pretty surprised I survived here. I still wish we could get the high-speed rail dealie going so that I could visit my folks in Massachusetts without losing half a day and all my marbles getting there, but I still love New York 10 months out of the year. (The bad months, as any New Yorker will tell you, are August and February.)

4. I’m an old. There’s a whole new generation of workers now, and they have every bit as bad a reputation as we hoary old Gen Xers did when we first arrived. Seriously, young folks, do not despair: when I was your age, we were all going to ruin the world with our high ideals and poor work ethic. You’ll change the world, and the world will change you. Ten years from now, you’ll be rolling your eyes at the whippersnappers in the intern pool, and everyone will have forgotten how you almost ruined everything with your Twitters and crowdfunding and sexting.

5. Parts of my body just stopping working. This is probably part and parcel of No. 3, but did you know that your body can just, like, crap out on you? My thyroid went first. Thank God we live in the future and they can give you medicine for that, or I’d look like a cartoon witch, brittle hair and misshapen body included. (My hairpins still fly out all the time, even when my thyroid medication is optimized, so we won’t count that.)

6. I’m an aunt. My sister has two kids now, Oz and Luci. It’s sort of hard to remember what life was like without them.

7. My folks retired and moved to the Cape. This means that I have a summer house, which is very convenient, as my income stream is variable and unpersuasive to mortgage brokers.

8. I’ve been a redhead so long now that I really don’t know what color my natural hair is anymore. I seem to remember that it was vaguely gingery-browny-ash-blond — a.k.a. boring grownup white person color.

9. I no longer wear heels unless someone is getting married or has died. Even then, I carry flats in my purse.

10. I’m addicted to my Kindle, even though I never thought I’d get on board with book-replacement technology. In fact, I spend so much time looking at screens every day, I’m pretty sure I’m going to have cataracts by the time I’m 40.

I’m still, as you might have guessed, a hypochondriac.