A New Year

One of the benefits of having one's birthday around the start of a year is the double dose of contemplation it brings. When I was a child I always hated that my birthday fell on January 2nd. The Christmas/New Year holidays are officially over, life starts going back to "normal," when you're school aged and it falls on a weekday, it's oftentimes the day you go back to school. Now, however, I relish the opportunity to reflect on a new year of my life at the same time as the New Year.

This year in the midst of family visits, fun games, Lego-building, movies, cooking and eating I was especially in the mode for contemplation--thinking about all of the changes in my life over the past decade.

Right around this time, 10 years ago (January 6th 2000), I started dating the man who is now my husband. My sister, Ashley, and I spent Dec. 30th 1999, New Year's eve, and New Year's Day, 2000 camping and rock climbing in Joshua Tree National Park with 'Chung and several of his friends. We had a blast ringing in the New Year, the end of the 1900s and the beginning of the 2000s together cooking steak over a campfire and toasting the new year in plastic (or tin?) camping cups, not worrying about all of the Y2K hype that was going on at the time. We came home and celebrated my 21st birthday in a very low-key way. 'Chung was still there, my family was there, but I don't remember much else. A few days later we started dating. I don't advertise it, but we knew then that we would be married...we never really had the DTR (defining the relationship) discussion in which we discussed dating, but right off the bat we knew that we would marry.

'Chung and I approached that first, foundational, year of our relationship, a little differently than the average new couple: we didn't talk. Our friendship had been built by spending long hours on the phone together getting to know one another and over the course of the previous 6 months we had discovered how closely our foundational values aligned. I knew that the distraction of a new relationship would not be a good way to start the very busy semester I had ahead of me, and 'Chung was equally occupied with helping to start a home church. So, after I made the first of many short trips to visit him in the Bay Area in January, and aside from exchanging a handful of emails and letters, we didn't really communicate much with one another for the first half of the year. There was a sort of peaceful security in this, Knowing that we were for eachother, that he was there and we'd have our whole lives ahead of us to get to know one another, we didn't really need to see or hear from each other. After the school year ended in 2000, we took a trip with another friend to OneDay in Tennessee and the summer brought even more silence between us as I left shortly after school got out for 7 weeks in Romania followed by 2 weeks in Italy and a week in London--pretty much the whole summer. It was in Romania that Ashley really got to know her future spouse, Eric. 'Chung came to visit at Thanksgiving, and we went to a conference together in Dec. in Texas, so we did see eachother more in the second half of the year, but still didn't talk a lot while I was in school.

2001 brought my graduation from Biola and Torrey, and shortly afterwards I moved to Berkeley so that 'Chung and I could be involved in each other's regular lives, I could join the home church he and his friends had started (and yes, let's be honest, so I could get out of Orange County).

In April of 2002 we had a major falling out with the home church and were not able to continue fellowship there. I felt like the ground had been ripped out from underneath me. I had started earnestly feeling the effects of what would later be diagnosed as Fibromyalgia. I'd been extra fatigued since my senior year of college and had been dealing with back pain since childhood, but now the fatigue was severe and the pain widespread. I started the process of seeing doctors, reading and researching to figure out what was wrong with me. I had also been unsuccessful at finding a job which would sustain me, and after a year in the Bay Area, in July, I knew I needed to moved back to my parent's home to recoup. I settled into my parent's home feeling like a complete failure. I knew I couldn't handle a job which was too taxing, but I had acquired some debt that I knew I needed to pay off. I started a retail job and had to start the process of doctor visits all over again with a new insurance and new set of physicians. In October 'Chung and I were engaged, and in December, shortly before moving back to the Bay Area, I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia.

In February 2003 I was able to move back to the Bay Area to prepare for our wedding which was in April of 2003. I was still working with the same retail company in a job that I hated. Towards the end of the year, I quit my job and decided to start tutoring. It was a huge risk, and meant we had no income for a while. It took about a year to ramp up enough clients to make the job realistic for the long term, but it was one of the best decisions I have made. 'Chung's brother was married a month after we were, and then another month later, Ashley and Eric were also married.

February 2004 brought our move to our house which 'Chung had started building shortly after I moved back home in 2002. 2004 was also a traumatic year as my parents separated in March and started the process of divorce (which would drag out for the next several years). The next several years would include a lot of processing and recovery from this. It was also around this time that we learned of my youngest sister's struggle will drugs. On a happy note, at the end of 2004 our first nephew was born to 'Chung's older brother and his wife. I also started seeing my massage therapist this year, which has proven to be the most effective thing I can do to manage my fibro.

In 2005 I continued tutoring and by this year had a pretty full schedule. 'Chung continued to work on our house and at various churches. I also continued to try various ineffective diets and treatments to improve the fibromyalgia.

In 2006 our second nephew was born to 'Chung's sister and her husband. 'Chung and I went to Brazil in the summer for a friend's wedding, and started learning how to shoot in September, but for the most part, it was a "normal" year.

2007 was a big year. In July, a niece was born to my sister, Ashley, and Eric. Lauren quit using once and for all and began her transformation into an incredible woman. My dad was married to Arlene. My dear friend, Dana was wed to Josh. 'Chung started his new job at UC Berkeley after working on and off for them for several years prior. He also built my beloved bookshelves this year. My tutoring business continued to grow and keep me busy.

In 2008 a neice was born to 'Chung's sister, Ashley and Eric decide to MOVE to BALTIMORE, our friends, Jessica & Izzy and Colleen & Eoin, were married. We got to take a trip to Hawaii for Colleen and Eoin's wedding. 'Chung's grandfather passed away. We purchased a house in San Mateo. And, in December, we added a puppy, Brembo, to our household.

In 2009 'Chung's brother and his wife had another baby, a girl. Several Jessica and Matia also each had a baby girl. We took a 5 1/2 week road trip across the country. A friend's husband was spared from death. My grandmother passed away. Our "puppy" grew into a 130 lb. dog and we acquired a cat, Monster while visiting Josh and Dana in Visalia in October.


This year, the 2010 New Year and my 31st birthday were spent relaxed, at home, surrounded with people I love.

What will 2010 hold? Well, at the very least: another nephew, a few more weddings, more growth, more laughter, and (probably) more pain.



What will the next decade bring? If I had been asked this around the 2000 New Year, I would have had no idea, inkling or glimmer of all this decade would bring me. 2010-2019? I haven't the foggiest. What I do know is that God has blessed me in the past.

May you be richly blessed in 2010.