Skip to main content

where have the last twenty years gone?

 talk about a throwback thursday.

on this day, may 29th, exactly 20 years ago, i received a diploma from jessamine county high school at the memorial coliseum on the campus of the university of kentucky.

twenty.  years.  ago.


i guess that is supposed to make me feel old, and i guess in one sense it does, but the more powerful sensation is one of utter disbelief that it has been twenty years since that day.  of course, the camera holds no such surprise.  i look twenty years younger in these pictures.  and about 40 years skinnier.  but my existential reality allows for some wiggle room when it comes to self-image.  so, in my mind, even though my appearance has changed - i've grown some grayer hairs and some deeper lines in those years - my self is still my self.  i have learned some things and lost some things along the way, but it feels more like five to ten years ago than twenty.  i have lived in 4 different states during that time.  i have served 5 different churches and graduated from college and grad school. i got married.  had three children.  visited seven different countries.  i have served on the board of directors for several organizations and was ordained in the united methodist church.

josh, joe, and myself: the three musketeers, as we called ourselves

but mostly, i've just been living in the in-between moments, mundane and marginal as they may seem.  yet they have made up the hours which have made up the days which have made up the 240 months, which is the 20 years since i walked across that platform shook hands, and moved my tassels to the other side.  there's been some pomp and circumstance, to be sure.  but mostly it has been breathing and blinking, heartbeats and happenstance.  and it has been life.  twenty rich and beautiful years of it.


from l to r:  me, josh, trevor, joe, rebecca, mia and mary ann

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

bad haircuts (for a laugh)

everybody needs to laugh.  one good way i have found to make that happen is to do a simple google image search for 'bad haircut.'  when you do so, some of the following gems show up.  thankfully, my 9th grade school picture does NOT show up.  otherwise, it would certianly make this list!  please laugh freely and without inhibition.  thank you and have a nice day. 

happiness is dry underwear

we started potty training jack on thursday. we followed a program called POTTY TRAIN IN ONE DAY, which, by the way, i think is kind of crazy. i mean, if someone were to offer you a book called, "ACHIEVE WORLD PEACE IN ONE DAY" i don't think you would take it seriously. and yet here we are, trying to accomplish an equally daunting task in one 24-hour period. it is intense. the day is shrouded in a lie because as soon as your happily diapered child wakes up you tell him that it is a big party. we had balloons and streamers and noisemakers and silly string - all the trappings of a legitimate party. but it is most certainly not a party. it is a hellishly exhausting day. as soon as jack got out of bed, we gave him a present: an anatomically correct doll that wets himself. jack named him quincy. several times quincy successfully peed in the potty and even had an accident or two in his "big boy underwear." he also dropped a deuce that looked and smelled sus

the crucifixion of Robert Lewis

  "the crucifixion of Robert Lewis" mixed media collage with leaves, acrylic paint, and found objects by gregory a milinovich october 2023 this october i was invited to participate in a three day trip which was called a "pilgrimage of pain and hope."  while that may not sound super exciting to many of you, it actually really intrigued me.  i am the kind of person that wants to feel big feelings, and i am drawn to the deep places, so  i was interested in traveling to the scranton area, where the trip was planned, to see what it might look like to be a pilgrim that was wide-eyed and listening to the pain and the hope in the stories of others.   this trip included hearing the stories of immigrants to the northeastern pennsylvania area, and the work in the coal mines that many of them did.  it included hearing from folks who are working for housing justice and equity in downtown scranton.  it included hearing from those indigenous people who first inhabited that land.