Look Back & Laugh

"Ten years from now, make sure that you can say that you chose your life. You didn’t settle for it.” – Mandy Hale

Hello Dear Friend,

Well the year sure has been something so far hasn’t it? I think it’s pretty safe to say it has given us all a different kind of roaring 20’s than any one of us could have expected as we rang in the New Year and decade.

I know, like you I had high hopes for what 2020 would bring and although I’m still holding onto hope that the year will redeem itself in its second half I know this year is nothing like anything we imagined and life is feeling pretty heavy these days with everything currently going on in the world. So I’ve decided I would do some positive reflecting and share some of my highlight reel with you from my roaring 20’s. Be warned it's a tad long but an entertaining read ahead.

I’m a couple years into my 30’s now but I remember looking back on my 20’s on the eve of my thirtieth birthday and what I saw brought back a lot of smiles. I know, I know, many would say “Don’t look back! Keep moving forward!” but I think it’s important to look back and see where you’ve been and what you’ve lived through from time to time. With that note, let’s do some time traveling shall we?

For your reading pleasure...

Okay, where to start? Well, there was my first time flying – ever. Unfortunately that trip included me missing my return flight and feeling as if I would never leave the O’hare airport. Just so that you can fully understand my misery, I was running through the airport to my gate when this guy runs past me for the same flight. He made it. I didn’t. Two seconds, count them one, two, that was all it took. I was left on standby moving from gate to gate and terminal to terminal for most of the afternoon eventually I finally got the heck out of there and back to the Carolina Mountains but not before I feeling like Tom Hanks from his movie, The Terminal. To this day I still hate O’hare and yes that comes from some newly added experiences with that airport.

I also happened to graduate college just in time for a recession to hit our nation full speed and full force and leaving our country in a downfall that would eventually surpass the Great Depression. Sounds like a great time to be a post college grad who is starting to look for a job that would jump-start their career, doesn't it? Yeah, that's definitely a hell no! But hey, I made the Dean’s list every semester and graduated with honors. I’m also probably one of the few from my graduating class and possibly my generation with a degree that I actually put to good use. I’ve since taken that degree and built a career for myself. Now I’m in the corporate world with a “grown up” job complete with vacation days, full healthcare, and a 401K. I started at the bottom and worked my way up.

After college I moved out to Louisiana thinking the move was indefinite. As it turns out it that was just for a short season, who could have guessed? During that time I was living with a close friend which turned into quite the adventure. Our time spent living together started out in the ghetto. Now to this day, she’d still tell you that it was the edge of the good part of town. To which my response will forever be - yeah okay, whatever helps you sleep at night. Don’t worry we later moved. Anyway our nights and days off from work would include anything from singing half-to and half-for her cat, affectingly named Baby Cat, to pranking some of our close friends while they visited from Oklahoma by forking their RV in the middle of night. We also spent a good deal of our free time in downtown Baton Rouge and the French Quarter of New Orleans with our camera’s on us like accessories we were always ready for photo shoots of each other and our surrounds. The surrounds at times might have taken place in some unorthodox places.

There was also that time we were scheduled to take a 3 hour tour – queue up the Gillian Island theme song (you’re welcome) of New Orleans but instead ended up stuck in bumper to bumper traffic trying to get into the city from Baton Rouge. Needless-to-say we missed our tour but hey we found out why traffic was so bad when we somehow ended up driving alongside a St. Patrick’s Day parade in the French Quarter before later spending a good portion of our day hanging out in one of the many New Orleans cemeteries. I'm not even going to begin to get get into what our time spent at work looked like.

My Louisiana adventure came to an end with a flat tire. No kidding! One of my tires decided to blow out on the freeway two days before moving back home to North Carolina. Thank God my parents had come down to Louisiana to help me move and my dad happened to be the one driving when this unfortunate event happened. There’s nothing like being huddled down beside your car on the side of the freeway, in the middle of the night, in the winter, with cars zooming past you on one side and an eerie swamp on the other. The beam from my flashlight may or may not have drifted once or twice from where my dad was working on the tire to the swamp-lands below in a nervous search for alligators. Oh, and did I mention that my Louisiana adventure started out with me being homeless? Another story for another day…

Moving on, at 23 there was a very short period that I spent living in Florida and working on the beach. I was on an island and shared living quarters with lizards and gecko’s. One day I ventured out with the sole mission to find Pippi Longstocking's house which was a success, eventually. I walked the streets of downtown Historic Fernandina Beach and sought to catch the sun setting on the marina. I biked the sandy beaches during low tide and took off in my car for the scenic roads leading to neighboring islands. I rushed to beach during thunderstorms sometimes that was for work related responsibilities and other times it was for pure pleasure. I tell you what there’s nothing like watching the sky grow dark as the wind picks up and the thunderheads role in over the ocean.

I chased after the sun and watched surfers greet the day as dolphins danced as silhouettes behind them. I visited the historic American Beach a time or two which seeped into the grains of its sand, holds its rich yet sad history. I stepped out to the front yard with my employers (yes I lived with them too), and we watched as the major hotels on the island put on a show setting off fireworks to celebrate our nations Independence. I also took quite a few trips to the mainland and even made a few day trips to Jacksonville.

There was also a time or two when I, along with my bosses, would get amused while working during the days that I would get hit on from college boys doing the summer tourists thing. After they’d leave the store the three of us would crack up and share laughs since it was painfully obvious what they were up too. I ended up being the center of those conversations both at work and at home as they would give me a hard time and lovingly pick on me by saying things like “Man, they weren’t paying attention to anyone or anything but you.” or on my day off coming home to tell me, “That guy who likes you came in again. He seemed disappointed when he realized you weren’t there.”

Shortly after returning to the Carolina's from Florida, I decided to take my brother up on his offer to go on a road trip up north. It was a trip filled with singing along to some guilty pleasures from our teen years with nothing but highways, back roads and farmer’s fields in our horizon. The ride carried with it many laughs, junk food and sibling bonding. After all, we did have 12 hours to kill before we'd make it to the Indiana/Michigan border! At least 12 hours is all it should have taken...

We had our share of one-too-many misadventures for one road trip. The car broke down in the middle of the night on a highway exit somewhere in Ohio still 3 hours out from our destination causing us to ask an amused and empathetic hotel manager “Where are we?” After finally getting the car fixed and back on the road late the next morning we found ourselves almost interfering a high-speed chase that was probably two minutes after entering back on the freeway. I kid you not, there were cops one after another whizzing by us as they chasing after this car that had passed us by going through the shoulder/divided part of a divided highway. I mean there was even a helicopter overhead for crying out loud! It was definitely a trip for the books and we probably ended up on the Finley, Ohio local news.

We're entering into my mid-twenties now...

I got to vacation in Ireland and the highlight of my trip was the pleasure of walking/hiking along the ridge of the Cliffs of Moher. I explored the Irish countryside and got lost in some of Ireland's biggest cities. I was hit on by a drunken Irishman and shown overwhelming hospitality from the town folk as they treated me like their equal sharing stories with me as if they’ve known me all along. I’ve listened to the locals gathered in the village pubs as they would unwind and play their music, I stood freezing on mesmerizing coastal shores and kissed the stone wall of a castle that my ancestors built - kissing this castle also just so happens to be listed as one of the top 100 things to do before you die.

I’ve been to some of the poorest areas of Paraguay and witnessed some of the biggest smiles coming from some of the smallest people. While there I became a cheerleader at a recreational soccer game, watched a classroom of children eagerly learning Bible stories about the power and love of God and passed out shoebox gifts to children while their parents watched and shed tears over the generosity and love that was poured out to them by foreign, American, strangers. I also had the privilege to pray alongside the local pastoral staffs and missionaries who have made it their life mission to be a witness in such areas.

I went to Alaska and stood at the end of a runway playing chicken with an airplane as it came barreling at me until it lifted and took off into the air overhead. I dodged a moose as it crossed the road, watched a pod of Orca’s feed in their natural habitat, and ate fresh halibut from the halibut fishing capital of the world. I buried my feet into a cold black sand beach off the Gulf of Alaska, passed by glaciers, flown over an active volcano puffing smoke and wondered why I only saw “Avalanche Zone Ends” warning signs but never a sign to tell me where they began as I drove through the mountain range on AK-1 (Alaska Route 1) and explored the Last Frontier.

In my 20’s I lived in the swampland's, the mountains, and an island off the Atlantic Ocean on Florida’s coastline. I lived in 3 states in 3 years. I paid off and now own my practical “dream” car. I’ve hiked a mountain ridge during a steady rain, sprained my knee during a night jump at a trampoline park, gotten stranded on a mountaintop, found myself breaking into a friend’s house, ran down a mountain at the sight of a storm rolling in with a force and saw Alice wandering the streets as she tried to find her way back to Wonderland.

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As I mentioned those are some of the highlighted stories from my 20’s and although there are many more I could tell I'll stop but not before telling you one more thing. That highlight reel has definitely taught me a lot. There were times where I surprised myself and times when I surprised others. I’ve had to say some hard goodbye to the lives I cherished of people who were taken from this earth far too soon but that decade of years also brought some pretty great people into my life. I’ve laughed the hard, belly aching, just peed my pants, kind of laugh and done the ugly, suck in a breath, grab a paper bag before I hyperventilate, kind of cry. I’ve shown compassion with a passion, loved with fierceness, had grace under fire, hurt with dignity and learned to let go of what once haunted me.

I think it’s safe to say that I earned my passage into my 30’s. Sure these early years of my thirties have come with their own challenges and I’m not exactly where I’d like to be in life but I like seeing how I’ve grown and where I’ve come from. More importantly I like seeing the woman I’ve become and I like where I’m headed.

Now, I’ll leave you will this challenge. Take some time looking back and reliving your highlight reel. Don’t spend this time focusing on the pain. Focus on the good times and the beautiful parts of the life you’ve lived thus far. Smile and laugh, look at all the ways you’ve grown and all the crazy-ass adventures you’ve taken and all the things that you’ve done that have gotten you here to your current place in time.

Maybe you have already surpassed your 20’s. That's okay, shift your focus and take a moment to realize this is your time. There’s nothing but opportunity lying before you. How many people can say they get to live two sets of twenties? We’ve already had our physical twenties which carry memories of adventures, unfortunate events, stupid mistakes and dumb choices but there was also lessons learned, growth and self-discovery as we entered into and became our own person. I know it's started out as a bit of a suck fest but what if you took this decade and let these twenties outshine your physical twenties? Just think, you get to embark on a whole new decade of twenties not as a do-over but as chance to one up and do-it-better. We have the opportunity to take everything life has taught us no matter how many of our years are spent and we get to embrace a new decade of twenties. Let’s make sure these 20’s roar shall we?

With love,

a Poetic Soul