Philosophical Musings on a Decade of Good Experiences

Yesterday was my 29th birthday and no, I am not ashamed to share my age.  Instead, as I embark upon the last year of my twenties I am feeling rather nostalgic, reflecting on all that I've experienced and accomplished in this decade.  Exciting yet tumultuous at times the decade of your twenties is characterized by change.  Everything changes when you are in college and turn 20.  You're no longer a teenager (which makes you feel even more independent, grown-up, and invincible than before) and, if you're a college goer, you start delving into your major with classes that genuinely interest you and thoughts of your bright, shining future as a successful, financially independent, adult member of society loom large on the sunny horizon.  Oh, and you're almost of legal drinking age;-)  Then, you hit 21 and you party in style to celebrate your legal arrival at adulthood.  When I turned 21 I was a senior in college, so that spring I was attending every job fair in sight while preparing for graduation. 

In my early twenties, I graduated from college.  Hooray!  I now had a bachelor's of arts degree to go out into the world and be recognized as the next brilliant author, publisher, editor, what-have-you with my ever-so-useful-and-impressive English major, right?  Wrong.  It was 2003 and employers weren't exactly leaping to hire that year's newest liberal arts graduates.  I did, thankfully, land a fun summer job working for the Governor's School of Virginia for the Arts and Humanities.  Then, that September I landed my first "real" job in the marketing department at the headquarters of AOL near my hometown in northern Virginia.  Life was my oyster now.  I was making a good starting salary, had my own company-supplied laptop, great benefits, fun coworkers, and I lived at home which meant I was saving lots of money.

Thus began the rather tumultuous part of my twenties...

9-5 repeat.
9-5 repeat.
9-5 repeat.
9-5 repeat.
TGIF! 9-5 repeat.
Hooray for the weekend.
REPEAT.

Restlessness didn't take long to settle in.

We'll call it an early quarter-life crisis;-)

After working in a lovely cube farm with very little appreciation for the good, steady job I had, I decided change was better.  I up and moved across the country to a new city I thought sounded cool -- Denver, Colorado.  Major change!  This was more rewarding and challenging than I could have originally imagined and yet it was one of the most empowering moves (literally!) that I've ever made.  Here in Denver I tried my hand at publishing (too cut-throat!) then landed another good, steady job in the training department (yeah, future teacher!) at Pulte Mortgage.  I signed a lease with a friend on a great apartment and we began literally building a life for ourselves out here in The West!

It was not long after this major life change when I met the love of my life and soon-to-be husband, Andy Getz.  A couple years later, in my now mid-twenties, Andy and I married and started another wonderful (and ironically also another cross-country) adventure of life as newlyweds.  We lived on two coasts in the first two years of our marriage, then settled back down in the Denver area.

The later half of my twenties has given me the experience of graduate schooling!  Yes, after two years of hard work and a fun semester of student teaching I now have my M.Ed. degree in Secondary English Education from George Washington University in DC!  I can't wait to have my own classroom one day.

So what final adventure awaits this last year of my twenties???  You guessed it!  PARENTHOOD!  *Gasp*  I couldn't be more ready.  Amidst all the excitement and major milestones I've accomplished in my twenties (college degree, cross-country move, marriage, master's degree, three European trips) I imagine that parenthood will be one of my proudest accomplishments.  It's one that I will get to share with my love, Andy, and we are so very excited to welcome our first son, Braden Hawthorne Getz ("Brady" for short!) into our family.

Something tells me that this last year of my twenties shall be the greatest of them all... :-)