Having recently been forced to upgrade my old computer, I’ve started realizing just how much things have changed in the last decade. And I pick the 10-year point because it’s when my life changed most significantly, and because it’s just a nice round number. But watching change happen around you is a bit like watching your hairline disappear—it happens so slowly that you don’t really notice it til someone points it out to you and then WHAM! You can’t NOT notice it anymore.

For instance, ten years ago:

• We were all using dial-up
• A 2.6Ghz Intel Pentium chip, with Hyperthreading, was just da-bomb! Now, it sucks
• My dogs were puppies
• I thought making the money that I do now would be a blessing
• Christmas was still about “me”!
• Stamps were 33 cents each
• The DOW closed above 11,000 for the first time (aaah, the good old days. Thank you Mr. Reagan!)
• IE version 5.0 was released (we’re now on what…8.x?)
• MySpace was introduced and pervs around the world could now show off their freakiness!
• We were all walking around quoting “Austin Powers”

But there have been more personal changes of course. For instance, in the last ten years, I’ve gone back to school and finished my degree. I’ve had three children and I’ve now been married for ten years. Ten years…wow!

Funny thing is, my shell has changed, but my mind has not. I’m still the same young-at-heart, testosterone-laden Male I was then. Only now it’s tempered with respect for my wife.

Now rather than figuring out when I want to start having kids, I’m trying to figure out how to stop having them and still have fun.

Instead of going for a run at 9 p.m. cuz I’m bored and have too much energy, I veg out in front of the TV while lying in bed because I know I’ll be up at the butt-crack of dawn getting juice and blankets for the boys, in between potty training and bottle feedings.

This is how old age gets you. It doesn’t hit you all at once with a slip in the bathtub and a hip fracture. No, it sneaks up on you little by little until the next thing you know, you’re having thyroid tests run and trying to figure out when Taylor Swift stopped looking like a child and became a hottie you’d hit given half a chance! (When you were SINGLE. When you were single…)

Oh snap! Maybe my mind HAS changed.

Crap!