But I choose to look at life since then and I am amazed at the changes 11 years can make in a life. 11 years ago I was working in IT in a small computer lab and studying like mad to become an airline pilot. I had my private pilot's license by that time and was working hard on a multi-engine rating. I had gardened once or twice but never to any scale or success. I was a pilot. I was all things gas and power and speed.
Now look at me. I work in the public arena - something 11 years ago I swore I would never do. I work with an Indian Tribe, striving to better their living conditions and their economic situation while simultaneously watching mine deteriorate and fade with the harsh reality of the new economy.
But that is not the most important change. The last eleven years have made me a father of two amazing children that are so much smarter than myself. I have raised my own chickens, not only once but twice. I have eaten a fresh egg from my animals (many more than one, actually). I have eaten a meal almost entirely of my own making, from seed to full stomach. I have raised alpacas and bred them and made more little babies to increase our herd. I have survived unemployment only to find another position that, surprisingly, fulfills me almost as much as my farming does.
11 years ago we lived in a mildly backward town in the middle of nowhere Arizona. We looked forward to an urban life, the food and the shops and the entertainment foremost in our minds. Now, we have just moved from the city to the country - now caring for 10 acres and almost 100 alpacas (thought not all ours, I must say). We don't look forward to restaurants and movies and shopping. We look forward to the day when the land between our toes is our own and the animals in their pens are our own and the food in our kitchen is our own.
Eleven years does not seem like such a long time but the changes I have seen in that time amaze me. I can't wait to see what the next eleven look like.
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