Lost in time

I have this problem remembering when things happen. I mean if you were to ask me when in my life something occurred I could give you a very detailed description of that time. I can tell you what part of the year it was in, what character I was playing at faire, what show I was working on, who was getting married or having a baby, movies that were coming out, and all the other things that stand out in my head.

What I can not do is tell you what year any event occurred in. Years seem to blur together and I have the greatest of difficulties telling you how many years it has been since something happened. I still have to count backwards from the year I graduated high school to tell you when I was in what grade.

I couldn't even tell you what year I was married in. I mean the day of the month, sure I know that, but the year? Nope. That particular detail never seemed important enough to memorize. I know I have been married 8 years, and we were engaged for 1 year, and we dated for three years, and we knew each other a year before that. I have to stop and do some thinking and counting on my fingers to come up with a date for the start date for almost any of these.

The thing is when I do the math in my head and compare it to other events I know were happening at the time, they don't always match up. I know that sounds weird but it is so true. Let me give an example.

This last year at Scarborough it was my 10th season on cast. I know this only because I actually have to count characters I have played. That means my first season on cast was 2003, even though my brain says it should have been 2002 since this is 2012. Counting from one always throws things off.

Now this last weekend we were trying to figure out how long the shop has been opened and how long I have been working there. We came up with it is the shop opened in 1999 and has been open 13 years. I will give you a moment. Yes that makes 14 years. That whole counting from 1 business again.

I was laying in bed last night when I realized this and got terribly disappointed that we had gotten the times wrong. We had planned to throw a party for 13 years in business, and this would just ruin it. Me and my stupid math skills messed everything up.

Then I realized I was both right and wrong. The shop has been open 13 years because it opened in 2000 not 1999. We were basing the original year of opening off of my start date with the shop. I thought I had started in 2000, which was the second year we were open.

After a lot of thinking I realized a few things.

First: My first year in the shop I had been dating the husbeast for 1 full year. We started dating in October of my sophomore year of college, which was 2000.

Second: During my first year I was living over on University which happened in the summer of 2001.

Third: We were doing Hamlet at school that year. We did Cabaret in 2000.

All of this evidence leads me to the conclusion that I started in 2001 and this is my 11th year of employment at the shop. I took a year off in 2010.

I laid awake for well over an hour last night going back and forth on whether this was right or not. I just could not remember for the life of me what was the right year. I am just special like that I suppose. There are always much worse things to lose sleep over, though probably not quite as trivial.

I suppose I would do well to write down major events somewhere, with the year included. Someday these facts might be needed and I can't guarantee my memory will always be good enough to recall enough details to piece together the correct year.

Of course I could just let myself forget and just not care about things like how old I actually am or how long I have actually been married. I mean that isn't really important right? I can just say I am older than I was last year and have been married a long time. Right?