So Columbine’s musing…

So Columbine's musing about milestones, and you know that made me think about what I consider a milestone, especially since I did finally finish a first draft of that my life in photos series (all the way to Salt Lake). Columbine hasn't really had any milestones, apparently. Yet I came up with a couple of milestones right away:

• going to college
• kissing a boy
• deciding I was never going to live in my parents' house again
• kissing a girl
• writing my first real short story
• falling in love for the first time
• getting my first poem published
• having sex for the first time
• hanging up on my mother
• travelling outside the country on my own
• being dumped for the first time
• finishing college
• moving in with a lover
• selling my first short story (thank you, Cecilia!)
• turning 21
• seeing my first galleys
• following a lover across the country
• starting an online workshop
• paying off all my debt (of course, incurring more very shortly thereafter)
• getting someone else to publish my book
• going to graduate school
• seeing my book listed (briefly) in Books in Print
• starting a magazine
• surviving graduate school
• getting a job that paid more than $15/hr
• deciding to go to graduate school again
• starting another magazine
• etc. and so on

Okay -- I realize that's more than a couple. That's a ton. But most of them are probably things all of you have done...and I'm quite sure that Columbine has done a number of them too. Clearly, my standards are a lot lower for what I consider a milestone.

Of course, I've always believed that life is going to be sad and difficult enough as it is, so that it's worth celebrating birthdays and anniversaries and holidays and small achievements and little successes and sheer luck...any excuse for a party! :-)