I’m always interested in the passage of time, and I recently realized that this summer is a significant milestone for me.

I was at the University of Virginia for eight years, from August 1991 to August 1999. During that time, I went to college for four years, worked at UVa for a year, and then went to law school there for three years. After taking the bar exam during the summer after law school graduation, I packed up my stuff, left Charlottesville and moved back up to the New York area.

At the time, I marveled at how much time I’d spent in Charlottesville. I began college at age 17 and finished law school at age 25. Eight years – nearly a third of my life up to then. It seemed like ages.

This summer is significant because another eight years have now passed since that summer.

For a long time after moving back up north, I felt like I was living in a post-UVa transition period – my “post-UVa life.” I defined my existence by what had come before it. (Sort of like how we called the ’90s the “post-Cold-War era.”) Life just didn’t seem as interesting or as stable as it had back in Charlottesville. Even several years after moving back up here, I still felt like I’d just recently left UVa.

Well, it’s now eight years since my UVa life ended – it’s been as long as my UVa life itself. It’s hard for me to sense how much time has passed since then; the past eight years seem to have gone by more quickly than the previous eight years. But I’ve experienced a lot since then — some things that happened so long ago that I sometimes take them for granted.

• I came out to my parents.
• I discovered blogs.
• New York City became my stomping ground.
• I had my heart broken several times.
• I had a five-year career in state government.
• I met Matt and we became partnered.
• I met my good friend Mitch in New Jersey, and other friends whom I feel like I’ve known for ages.
• I turned 30.
• I experienced life in a post-9/11 America.
• I lived through most of the Bush administration.

When I graduated law school eight years ago and wondered what my life would be like in 2007 at age 33, I don’t really know what I pictured. I probably hoped that at the very least I’d be in a stable relationship, out to my parents, and financially independent. Check, check, check. Besides that, I didn’t know. I was finally done with school and had no idea what I was going to do with my law degree. I couldn’t see ahead into the mists of time.

Life is like driving down a country road at night. Your headlights are on and you can see only a few yards in front of you, and you have no idea what’s around the next curve. My future is as murky now as it was back then.

But I guess I’m not in my post-UVa life anymore.

I’m just… in my life.