This time last year, I was...

1 year ago: I was fairly miserable and was closing in on my first anniversary of moving to the UK.  I wasn't sure if I could stay here permanently.  Now, I LOVE it here and we have just bought a lovely cottage.

5 years ago:I had just moved back to Massachusetts and was interviewing for jobs.

10 years ago: I was at University in Massachusetts working my butt off so I could graduate early, which I did about 2 months later.   

Living on my own in a flat above a psycho who later attempted to break into my flat and murder me (proper psycho, he played "white xmas" in July on an old scratchy record player at 2am - he was screaming "i'll kill you" whilst I escaped out of a tiny kitchen window, fell two stories onto a gravel path and ran to a phone booth), it was an awful flat with different type of mismatched floral wallpaper on each wall but when I was alone I loved it but I moved out the day after the Break in and didn't even go back for my stuff.

Good grief!

Good grief!

I know! Different floral walpaper on each wall?! 

1 year ago: living in Boston and juggling teaching three university courses, working a full-time admin job, editing a poetry manuscript, finishing up my second master's degree, and sorting out the Tier 1. visa process.  Clearly, I must have been trying to distract myself from missing my boyfriend by staying busy.

5 years ago: living in Atlanta after having spent the summer in London on a research grant. Sorting through the application process for MFA programs in creative writing. Missing London and wishing I could move there and just generally unsure of where my life was headed.

10 years ago: just starting my first year of university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Obsessed with indie rock music and spending all of my time at shows or dj'ing for the college radio station. Hanging out with semi-famous musicians and traveling around the country whenever I had the money and generally doing things I shouldn't have been.

Slight side-step from the topic, but today when I was returning from Edinburgh to Glasgow, and i saw the motorway signs saying Dumbarton, Kilmarnock, Greenock, I thought to myself... this time last year, I had never been to any of those places!  (i've been to them all now, multiple times.)

Slight side-step from the topic, but today when I was returning from Edinburgh to Glasgow, and i saw the motorway signs saying Dumbarton, Kilmarnock, Greenock, I thought to myself... this time last year, I had never been to any of those places!  (i've been to them all now, multiple times.)

Just think how deprived you were not having been to any of those places! 

Just think how deprived you were not having been to any of those places! 

Yes, I feel a much more cultured and well-rounded person for having visited them! 

1 year ago
I was just starting my first real job as a real doctor in the emergency room! I was scared out of my mind *and* in November my fiance moved over here which pretty much made me so lonely!!

5 years ago
I was in medical school living in Ithaca still!! I was beginning the more hands-on portion of medical school and nervous as heck about that financial aid haha

10 years ago
I'd just begun at Cornell (Holy Mother Mary has it been that long really??) and moved in with my now really good friend Jamie (my favorite room-mate I've ever had), oh gosh I miss that boy.

1 year ago I was loading up the car in Urbana IL, saying tearful goodbyes, driving up I-57 to Chicago with my wife and kids and boarding a plane bound for Heathrow.

1 year ago I was loading up the car in Urbana IL, saying tearful goodbyes, driving up I-57 to Chicago with my wife and kids and boarding a plane bound for Heathrow.

Well congratulations, you've made it one year! 

1 year ago, was my last day as an American resident.

5 years ago, I was living in DC, working mad hours and loving my life.

10 years ago, i was in undergrad. 

1 year ago, I met Richard Dawkins at the Edinburgh Book Festival! *swoon*

5 years ago, I was in the process of moving house, and also ran a 10K in Glasgow.

10 years ago, I was just starting my second year of uni at Miami University in Ohio and starting to think about studying abroad in France the following summer.

Well 1 year ago for me, I was happy to be out of my friends house where I was staying for a few months and finally back into my own space.  The flat however, was an abomination.  And so today, like every day since I moved, I celebrate not living there!!!

1) This time, one year ago, I was working on a zucchini farm in Bundaberg, Australia living with and getting to know my current fiance at a dirty little work hostel

2) This time, 5 years ago, I was about to start my freshman year of college at Northern Michigan University.

3)  This time, 10 years ago I was 13 years old, probably about to start school after summer break.

1 year ago I was loading up the car in Urbana IL, saying tearful goodbyes, driving up I-57 to Chicago with my wife and kids and boarding a plane bound for Heathrow.

Congratulations Dent, and thanks for reviving the thread!

This time last year I'd never met Mrs. Robinson, the one who started this thread, but now I have!