How Long is a Long Time?

NaBloPoMo Prompt: Do you think of a decade as a short or long period of time?

If I simply think "ten years"- that seems like a long time. 

However, if I consider what's happened to me in the past ten years and what I can remember from 10 years ago... it can't possibly have been that long ago. 

In the summer of 2004, I was finishing projects at KNOM and getting ready to move from Nome to New Haven to attend Yale Divinity School. (If I had been a better note taker or journal keeper, Nome to New Haven would have been a great book.)

Rob and I got engaged in the summer of 2004. 

I jumped in the Nome River, camped beyond West Beach, read news stories, and bawled my way onto an airplane, sobbing about leaving the Gold Rush City (which still holds a small piece of my heart). 

I remember my first (homesick/Nome-sick) weeks at YDS, sweating in my small apartment and trying to learn the Hebrew alphabet. 

All of that was ten years ago. 

The decade behind me was too short. The decade that is coming seems a long way off, but I know it will fly by. 

What was 2004 for you?