When you think about it, there aren’t really that many specific decision points in a lifetime where someone can easily say “That, right there, changed the course of my life.” Oh, there are obviously a few. Deciding to marry someone, choosing a college, choosing a career, having a baby, retiring, things like that are obvious points. What about years though? Ever had a year that packed so many events in that it feels like that set your course for a long time?
In my life I can think of a couple of years like that. Maybe the biggest one was twenty years ago. 1999 has been on my mind a bit lately. There’s a lot of very special anniversaries for me coming up in the next few months. That was the year that I decided love and a long-term commitment might actually be something I’d be interested in, got fit, found a new, self-confident me, and met the woman I would eventually marry.
As these things often seem to do, it all started because of a girl. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that it started with three girls, all of whom were friends before tolerantly allowing a goofy, awkward freshman into their social club. The Australian, the Canadian, the Hoosier, and me, the Californian. If we’d been walking into a bar, it would be the start of a bad joke.
But by early 1999, only one specific girl in this trio was in focus. How I met them in the first place is a story for later this year, but for now, suffice to say that we’d all hung out for most of my college time up to the point in question, which would be the second semester of my sophomore year. They’d graciously allowed me to not look like a dateless loser at our college’s major social events, and I’d… well, I hadn’t really done much beyond show up with flowers. But in my sophomore year I finally had a truck on campus, which meant I became significantly more useful for things like emergency Walmart supply runs.
Back then, the 2nd semester sophomore year was basically the make or break point for would-be Computer Science majors. Either you successfully wrapped your brain around the dueling logic patterns of advanced COBOL and basic C++, or you probably “felt the Lord leading you to a different career path.” I decided this would also be an excellent time to pick up a part-time job and acquire some spending money. Gas, books, coffee at the bookstore, and video games weren’t free, after all.
Meanwhile, one of the girls in my trio of friends had hit her senior year. For education majors, this was truly the make or break point, as they spent at least one semester doing student teaching. While I was trying to comprehend class inheritance and object inheritability, Dawn was dealing with actual classes of children.
Dawn and I ended up getting pretty close that semester. Looking back, I think that we each needed a shoulder to lean on for what was going on in our academic lives, and found that with each other. Maybe I thought it was turning into more than it was, since near the end of the year she made it clear that we were friends, nothing more. In hindsight, that was definitely for the best. She was off to be a teacher, I still had two years of college left, and long distance relationships rarely work out. However, the mental exercise that I went through to determine whether or not I was even ready to pursue a relationship with anyone would turn out to be incredibly important later that year.
