The 500th Post!

Today is a milestone for my little blog. This is my 500th post!

Whoa! I'm not sure if I should pat myself on the back: What ho, fine chap! 500 posts is rather smashing!

Or to shake my head: So much time wasted! You should have been writing or exercising or saving the ocean or breeding Persian cats to make extra cash! 

Anyway, I'm in a reflective mood today. I can't help but think about what I was doing when I wrote my very first post. Where I was living. What was I feeling. What was I doing. Back in January 2006 (when I started this blog) I was quite a different creature!

So here we are, a blog retrospective:

In January 2006...


Bridesmaid at my friend Alexis' wedding
  • I was 23 and a recent college graduate. I was terrified of the Real World.
  • I'd just started working at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. It was the first Real Job I'd ever had, complete with my own cubicle!
  • Sometimes I got bored at work so I started a blog. I titled it, "Adventures In Space."
  • I was nursing a broken heart. I had been dating a guy who was all sorts of wrong for me. I cried a lot.
  • I thought about my career a lot too. For awhile, I thought I wanted to become a museum curator or a college professor. So I applied to graduate programs in London. 'Cause this Real World thing? Nah, I'd rather live in London!
  • But, secretly, I wanted to become writer. It was what I had dreamed about since I was a little girl.
  • At night, I wrote personal essays. I even sent a few of them off to places like Newsweek and the Washington Post. I aimed high. 
  • I got rejected. 

Fast forward five and a half years. In September 2011...

Bridesmaid at my friend Amanda's wedding. 
  • I'm 28. I shall stay this age forever. I will never turn thirty. 
  • I work as a writer. It's difficult and draining and sometimes it feels like someone has scooped out my brains and filled my skull with flesh-eating lemurs. But I love it. Lemurs and all.
  • I've been lucky enough to have my articles published in newspapers and magazines. But still no Newsweek or the Washington Post.
  • One day though! *Raises fist* 
  • Remember that guy I bawled over back in 2006? Well, a few months after that, I met a certain boy named Justin. We've been together now for five years, and I couldn't ask for a more supportive, loving, hilarity-making husband. If writing is the calling of my mind, then he is the calling of my heart.
  • I think that should be a Hallmark card. Maybe tweaked. "Dear Husband: I love you. If knitting little hats for cats is the calling of my mind, then marrying you is the calling of my feline-obsessed heart." 
So whoa. Five years has blown by so quickly! I kind of wish I could take Caroline circa 2006 and give her a few words of advice. Like, stop crying over that stupid boy! And, hone your writing before you submit to the freaking WaPo! But, I figure I had to figure things out on my own, huh?

Either way, happy 500 posts, Little Blog! Thanks for letting me share lots of random thoughts and pictures with you.