22 years ago today

Welcome to the Season of Anniversaries! Twenty-two years ago today, I arrived in New Zealand as a tourist, beginning the story arc that's still playing out in my life. This is also what starts my not-totally-serious annual series of blog posts about various anniversaries that fall between now and January. The part that IS serious about this is that most of the significant anniversaries in my life fall during those five months—certainly the ones I’d talk about on this blog. Today’s is just the beginning.

I’ve said a lot about this date over the years, about the date in 1995, what it meant, why I sort of forgot about it, and how it became important again. Check out previous years’ posts, listed at the bottom of this post, to get more about all that.

The important thing, really, is that had the events of that day 22 years ago not happened, then the rest of the Season of Anniversaries wouldn’t have, either (except for my birthdays, of course; I believe those would have continued). Sure, in a way, it was nothing more than my NZ tourist arrival date stamped on my passport, and even though the date would later become overshadowed by others, September 12, 1995 was nevertheless a sort of foundation date.

Last year, I said:

As I often point out, November 2 has always been the important anniversary because that’s the date I arrived in New Zealand to stay, and we began our life together. Since then, we’ve had other “big days” to remember, too.

But because everything really began on this date in 1995, I think it’s worth remembering. And as long as I have a blog, I will.

And that pretty much sums it all up.

Previous posts about this anniversary (the first three only mention it):

Anniversay Time (2007)
Blogoversary 2 (2008)
Anniversaries Three and Fourteen (2009)
Where it began (2010)
Anniversary of the beginning (2011)
Another anniversary (2012)
18 years ago today (2013)
19 years ago today (2014)
Twenty years ago today (2015)
21 years ago today (2016)