Daily Prompt: Buffalo Nickel

Dig through your couch cushions, your purse, or the floor of your car and look at the year printed on the first coin you find. What were you doing that year?

2000

2000 was not a very good year for me. I was in my 1st year of marriage with my 2nd husband. We were married in November of 1999. I had lived alone, with my then 10-year-old daughter, for a couple of years after divorcing my 1st husband. We, my daughter and I, were pretty set in our ways. Getting used to living with a new husband was trying at times.

My 2nd marriage meant a move of around 60 miles, which meant I was learning to live in another city and county without the support of my family and long-time friends. I was mostly living without my daughter too. She didn’t want to change schools and, most of all, didn’t want to hurt her father or make him mad. Gradually, as she became a little more comfortable about her father’s reactions or disgusted with his actions, I got to see her more and more. She made friends in my new city, but still wasn’t ready to make the full move. Sometimes she would stay a week and my husband and I would take her back and forth to her school, 60 miles away.

2000 was the year my mammogram showed a huge mass in my right breast. Luckily, it turned out to be benign, but it caused me a lot of anxiety for a couple of months. The waiting and unknowing is always the worst.

2000 was also the year that my husband talked me into quitting my 3rd shift job at a huge bakery where I had worked for 7 years. The money was good and steady, but the job was stressful. I was driving a round trip of 140 miles a day. He wanted to start our own business and let me run it while he continued working in food service.

I still think of the year 2000 as a year of anxiety and stress, but it got better in 2001.