There are only five days left until I leave my 20s behind. It's been quite a nice decade for the most part, I can't complain. In talking with people who had survived their 20s and went on to become functional and pleasant grownups, it seems that your 20s are a throw-away decade. Sure, there are some good times, a few laughs, a few weekends you can't completely remember, but it's entirely ephemeral.
So as a fun read for the nine people who subscribe to this internet web log, I thought I'd write a brief review of my 20s. If you're one of those people who don't read reviews and just want to cut to the chase and know what grade I end up giving my 20s, I give it a B+. There, I've just saved you and extra ten minutes of reading.
I don't remember turning 20 in 1998. If I dug out one of my paper journals from whatever box they're hidden, I could tell you all the sordid details of that year. Sadly, it's late at night and I really don't feel like sorting through 10-year-old files to research a blog post. Suffice it to say I was in college, extraordinarily moody and suffering from a series of horrible haircuts and home dye jobs.
I do remember turning 21, though. My girlfriend (at the time) and I went out to eat at an Old Chicago in suburban Omaha and to celebrate the big 2-1 I bought myself a single beer. Actually, let me amend that, it wasn't even a beer. It was one of those awful Two Dogs lemonade things. If you haven't experienced one of these yourself, just imagine half a can of sprite poured into a glass of flat PBR. Yes, this was the highlight of my 21st birthday.
When I was 22, I moved to Kansas City. This is where the 20s start getting good. I had myself a great job, a fantastic apartment and an ex in town who was keen on expanding my drinking repertoire beyond Two Dogs. This set the stage for years 22 through 25. This segment of time I like to refer to as "mania, drama and plane tickets."
Don't get me wrong, 22-25 was a blast, I just wouldn't want to do it again. Well, I might take that back. I would do it again, but I'd need a good solid nap before taking another run at 22-25. One of my favorite memories of this time span sums up the entire three years very nicely: I'm on a park bench on the southern tip of Manhattan, it's 4 a.m. and I'm freezing my butt off, a cute girl is curled up on my lap snoozing away and on the other side of me a good friend is eating Indian takeout. I can't help but smile thinking about it.
Now 25 to 29 was like a four-year-long Sunday morning. I started to "get my shit together" as they say and things started falling into place where before they were just exploding and catching fire. I met Season, we moved in together, I got a great new job and the mania of the previous three years just became a really funny punchline to a "I can't believe I did that" story. We bought a 'project' house and spent a year rebuilding the entire thing. That year was definitely the most valuable of the entire decade.
So that brings us up to today. Looking back at the last ten years really makes me wonder what the hell is going to happen in the next ten. Flying cars? Rocket packs? Here's hoping.