Things insomnia made me count. In my life I have:

• Owned 3 houses and rented 5 apartments.
• Lived in 3 states (4 if you count a vacation home).
• Had 2 roommates (not counting a few temporary situations of less than a month).
• Had 1 (common law) husband.
• Owned 9 cars.
• Had 6 traffic accidents, 2 of which were ruled my fault.
• Spent time in 3 countries, including 45 U.S. states and 6 Canadian provinces.
• Had sex in at least 24 states.
• Had phone numbers with 5 area codes.
• No brothers or sisters, but 14 first cousins (approximately 12 of whom are still alive).
• Spent 2 nights in a hospital (not counting when I was born).
• Been to 0 high school class reunions (with plans to attend 0 more).
• Had 5 primary home computers (all Macs, which is why I had each one for so long).
• Had 3 full-time employers (though I had multiple positions in multiple locations for the first two, plus a ton of part-time and freelance employers).
• Had 4 medical procedures for which I was put completely under.

This is my dad, probably age 10 or so. Until tonight, I’d never seen a picture of him as a little boy. I have a baby picture and then just a big gap until he was in the navy, twenty years later.

Interestingly, I have tons of pictures of my mom as a little girl, but none of really anyone from my dad’s side of the family during the same era. Literally none. used to think it was because they were really poor (Great Depression, etc.) but I see now that there actually were pictures. They just all seem to have ended up with his sisters. I guess keeping up with photos was more of a “girl thing” in those days.

I’m glad that’s maybe less true now…