I was tagged with a meme by Blessed at A Blessed Crazy Life. The idea is to pretend that you are seeing someone you haven’t spoken to in 15 years. Actually, the whole meme is this:

Think back on the last 15 years of your life. What would you tell someone that you hadn’t seen or talked to for 15 years? How would you sum up your life? You get 10 bullet points. A list of 10 things to summarize about you. At the end of your list, tag 5 more people and send on the love…

15 years ago would have been the tail end of my bad year. During that year most anyone who knew me would have given you even money that I’d be dead or institutionalized by years end. So I suppose that’s where I’d start.

1. I did get better. I got therapy, I learned to take better care of myself and to stand up for myself. It wasn’t always easy, but I haven’t had a year that bad since.

2. Remember the teacher who molested me? I finally turned him in. He was eventually sent to jail when they found at least four other victims besides me. Turning him in was a big step towards self esteem for me.

3. I’ve finally learned to believe that I can compete when it comes to looks and brains. Given that I used to believe that I could only compete when it came to brains, I’d say that’s an improvement.

4. We lost my Mom to cancer 6 years ago. I still miss her every day.

5. I haven’t written the great American novel yet, but I’ve written a lot of other stuff. If you Google my name you can find a lot of stuff under my byline. I’ve also discovered blogging which I enjoy very much.

6. I still haven’t found Mr. Right. A few times I thought I came close, but it turned out close wasn’t quite enough. I’m still hopeful and still looking, it’s just my standards are a lot higher now.

7. I’ve had some health issues. I had heart surgery 7 years ago and some episodes of afib this year. Over all I’m healthy and I’m working on getting healthier.

8. I’m in the process of buying the first house I’ve ever owned. It’s in Traverse City, the one place I said I’d never live. It’s changed a lot.

9. I’m still estranged from my biological Dad, but my stepfather more than fills the Dad role. He loves me unconditionally, which is really an awesome thing.

10. I did finally finish college and now have two degrees, one in Business and one in Marketing. I worked full time and went to school at night and it took a lot of years, but I’m extremely glad I did it.

The rules of the meme say I’m meant to tag five people, but I think I’ll reserve my tags for now. I’ll wait until I have a bigger pool of readers and I’ll spread the love then.

Thanks to Blessed for tagging me. This meme really made me think about how far I’ve come and how much my life has changed. I’m grateful for all the good in my life now, and to see how far I’ve come in 15 years.