Has It Really Been 30 Years?
I’ve checked my calendar and my birth certificate and it seems to be true that as of today I am thirty years old. Part of me had hoped that was a rumor, but I cannot deny it. While I’m still young enough to be sort of “hip”, it won’t be too long before they (whoever “they” are) start to refer to me as “middle aged” (whatever that means…like they know something about my lifespan that I do not). But I digress.
Turning twenty hit me pretty hard, mainly because I loved nineteen, the age where you’re an adult and have some freedoms, but where you’re still young enough to where people don’t expect a whole lot of you yet and you don’t have any “real” bills. Nineteen was great, though not very fulfilling.
Fast forward a decade.
While I dreaded them at first, my twenties were great. They weren’t easy by any stretch of the imagination, but they were great and full of learning and personal growth/maturity.
In my twenties I graduated from college (AS from Purdue University), got an entry level job (in my degree field with Indiana University), got married (to my “high school sweetheart”), graduated from college again (BS from Purdue University), bought a house, got a promotion to a salary position, became a father, started my own consulting business (on the side at that point), got “laid off” from my “day job”, nurtured my business (with help from above, family & friends) into a “full time” job during my unemployment period, spent a ton of time with my kids during the days and most recently, started another business (I’ve not “officially” announced the details of that though).
So yes, my twenties were not always easy, but they were action packed and far beyond what I could comprehend could take place in a ten year span of time and I stand amazed at how much I’ve learned and grown. Those years will always bring back fond memories, but it’s time to press on and see what my thirties have in store for me.
I look to my thirties not in dread, but rather in anticipation. And maybe that’s just a part of being a little more mature. Yes, the road probably won’t be an easy one (remember, I said that I have kids…and they’re getting older along with dad…AND I’m a small business owner), but I know that it’ll be worth it in the long run and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Stay tuned after these brief messages (for the next ten years)…
