My 140-character answer was "#10yearsago I was living in NYC, finishing the last of my grad/med school courses, planning my wedding, and playing for the Brooklyn Blades."

10 years ago was a lifetime ago. Both my sons didn't exist. Didn't. Exist. As most parents know, thinking about life before kids is a surreal experience.

Back then, I thought that I'd be transferring with my lab from Cornell to Columbia. I assumed Husband and I would be on the east coast for awhile. I knew we would have kids pretty soon, but thought I'd be pushing a stroller in Central Park. But when I was pregnant, I quickly realized I didn't want to be in neuroscience anymore. I didn't want to raise my kid in a city that I loved but that would be far from my family.

In those ten years, we moved from our E71st Street apartment in Manhattan to a small condo in my hometown all the way across the country, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Then we moved into a small rental house in the same town. While I was pregnant with Splig we purchased our own spacious house about 40 minutes away, not too concerned about the school district at that time because we figured we'd just send the kids to private school. Of course that whole situation blew up. And so we moved to a small house in a better school district. Five homes in a decade isn't a tremendous number, but still more than I would have guessed on New Year's Eve 1999.

In those ten years, my "work" has changed as well - both in terms of paid and hobby-based. My interests have evolved in unexpected directions and I've met some amazing folks.

A lot has happened. And so looking forward is really scary. And exciting.

In ten years, I'll have two teenage boys. The Cat will be about to turn 19. Will he be in college nearby or far away? Will he have instead decided to take time off? Will he have a profession that doesn't require college? Splig will be 15. He'll be eager to get his learner's permit, probably prepping for the SATs. Will he still be an athlete in some capacity? Of course, this assumes they both remain healthy and well. As much as I want to take a peek into that future, I don't want to rush time. I wish I could be assured that our family is safe, sound, alive and well, but I certainly don't want to fast-forward to when the boys are grown up. After all, in ten years I'll be the shortest one in my family. But even that is contingent upon a yet-to-be-answered question - will the boys be our only children?

In the next decade, I'll meet make new friends. New people will join our family. And - as fearful as I am of this - I know that people will die. I pray that all those close to me are around the entire decade with me. And even typing this wish makes me nervous because I know there are no guarantees. When my mom was my age, she lost her mother. Then ten years later, she lost her father. Both losses were exactly in December. Believe me, I have thought a lot about that this past December.

I know the answer is to live each day to its fullest. I know to cherish each "high-five" with a tiny hand that will be larger than mine before I know it. I know that to climb a mountain requires a single step. I know that I can set into motion things now that will pay off for me this coming year, and this coming decade. It is scary. It is exiting. And it is life.

Best wishes to everyone as they look backwards, and forwards, and then look straight inside themselves to now.

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The above photo was taken exactly a decade ago -- Don't Husband and I look young? While rooting through my boxes of photos (it was pre-digital camera!) I found my grad school degree (which I thought was lost somewhere in a water-logged shed) as well as a bunch of letters and other nostalgia-triggering items. Wow, does time fly...