How Much Things Change

We celebrated Memorial Day by going for a walk in Golden Gate Park, around Stow Lake. We also climbed up to the top of Strawberry Hill and admired the view. San Francisco is so beautiful: I will really miss it when we move.

Afterwards, we went out for pizza at Milano Pizzeria, which was pretty nostalgic as B and I used to go there all the time (like once a week) when we lived in the Outer Sunset on Vicente St (back in 2001-2002). We would frequently bike there (it's about half an hour each way), since the route is pretty pleasant/low traffic.

It's strange to think of us going there as a young unmarried couple, before most of our travels, before graduate school, and with completely different career paths. B worked in a neurobiology lab then, tormenting mice and rats in hopes of curing chronic pain, and I worked as a receptionist (and hated it). We hadn't yet decided what we wanted to do when we "grew up". Neither of us had lived anywhere but northern California. We still did a lot of recreational drugs on the weekends/holidays.

Now we've been married for almost 4 years (as of June 23!), have a daughter, two graduate degrees (one Phd in Economics, one MA in Museum Studies), have lived in Asia for three years (and will be moving there again in a month), have visited 11 additional countries, and learned another language. Also, B became ambitious and career-focused, and spends most of his waking time working (back in the day he usually only worked until 4 pm or so). I became organized and in charge of everything, and successfully run the household and the schedules of three people (back then I could barely get myself dressed in the morning). It's amazing how much is different.

Of course, some things are the same: B still doesn't have a driver's license; I still can't cook anything; we still like traveling, reading, eating out, and learning new things; and we are still together. Also, a lot of our furniture is the same! (since we've never been settled enough or made enough money to get nice new things). That may change soon: or maybe not, I don't know if I want to invest money on furniture in Singapore since we'll probably be moving again.

Maybe in 10 more years Milano Pizzeria will still be there, and the three of us will again go to dinner. I wonder what changes the next 10 years will bring?