My Twenties in Review

My twenty-ninth birthday has come and gone. It left in its wake the realization that this is my very last year as “a twenty-something.” I spent my birthday alone by choice so that I could enjoy the sweet solitude of my own company and, in that time alone, I did a little praying and reflecting. At the end of it all I came to one jarring conclusion: I will not miss my twenties once I’ve turned thirty.

While I appreciate and am grateful for the growth and lessons that have taken place in my tumultuous twenties, I am going to be so over it when this decade of my life is complete. I know that I’m not the only one who feels this way about their twenties because some of you have shared with me that you feel the same.

The twenties have been fun but they have also been painful. I “wilded out” like nobody’s business in my early twenties and I paid dearly for it too. Still, I have very few regrets because I do realize that a lot of who I was then has a great deal to do with who I am (and who I am not) now.

God has been so good (and merciful) to me, too. He rescued me from so many bad decisions and opened my eyes to the error of my ways so that I wouldn’t go those routes anymore. That thought alone brings a tsunami to my dark eyes. When I think of where I could have been had He not intervened on my behalf … Selah.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate my twenties. I’m just not going to be broken up about them “exiting stage left.” One’s twenties are all about self-discovery and, no matter how you slice it, self-discovery is a bittersweet thing and it doesn’t usually get sweet until after the discovery.

At any rate, I welcome my twenty-ninth year with great anticipation. I plan to spend this, my last twenty-something year in a state of constant reflection. I will look back on all I’ve been through since August 2000, even read some of my old journals and writings over the years and I will take all that I have learned in my twenties into my thirties with joy and thanksgiving.

Looking back on it all, my life could have gone so many different ways but God (mercifully) saw fit to put me on a path that would eventually bring me to where I am now … content and a lot surer of myself than when I first began the “Twenties Trot.”