I’m big on reflection.  I like to look back and take stock of how my life has changed over time.

This year I’m looking back twenty years to December 1990, a turning point in my life.

I was twenty-one years old and had just bought my first car, a brand-new blue Ford Escort.  Driving around the freeways of Detroit, you could spot about a million blue Ford Escorts in 1990.  It wasn’t a particularly inspired choice and I’d financed the thing at a rate of 17.9%.   I was clueless and deliriously happy.

My college graduation was a few weeks away, a semester later than I’d planned so there were snowflakes in the air instead of leaves.  I felt light on my feet.

Earlier that year I’d moved out of my parents’ house and was living with a good friend.  Our apartment was institutional and in a depressing part of town, but it felt like heaven.

My internship in the HR department of Henry Ford Health System had turned into a job offer.  I felt like I had it all.

A week before commencement, the lightness and possibility that surrounded me met an unmovable obstacle.  My uncle died suddenly and everything just stopped.

In the confusion that followed his death, I dropped everything to spend time with and support my family.

Looking back now, I see that I was balancing on the edge of life as I’d known it.  I was falling towards maturity and wisdom, towards a deeper, more awe-inspired and respectful view of life.

My uncle’s death showed 21-year-old me that living isn’t about having your own car or apartment.  It’s about holding your aunty’s hand in silence when life as she knew it has ceased to exist.

In December 1990, lightness and possibility lived side-by-side with my first palpable sense of how fleeting life really is.

Five years later, I packed up my Escort and drove to New York City to make the most of whatever life I had left to live.  And a new chapter began.

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In the spirit of reflection, I invite you to download and complete this time capsule.  Find a quiet space, center yourself and open up to the questions.   Let yourself be surprised by your answers.

Then seal it in an envelope and put it away until next year.  Or ask a friend to hold onto it and give it back to you in December 2011.