Reflections on a new decade

I just turned 30. I'm not feeling glamorous about it. I feel like I wasted my 20's on a deadbeat ex and spun my wheels in dead end jobs for far too long. It's only been in the last year that I feel I've started to really get a bearing on life, and it feel like it's happening too late.

Sometimes I wish I could go back and do it all over. I wish I would have paid attention to the red flags with my ex, run the other way, and had life turn out different.

Today, this is what my mom wrote on my Facebook timeline:

She knew I was refusing to age gracefully

I realize if I went back, I'd probably do everything exactly the same way. Because from day one, I was stubborn as hell. I do things my way, and only my way, for better or for worse. (This is why I'm afraid to have kids; when my mother says "I hope someday you have kids just like you," it's a real curse!)

I recently completed climbing two peaks which were the hardest hikes I have done to date, because I am too stubborn to not finish something I start. I finished school while working two jobs even after my divorce while I was barely keeping myself together because I was too stubborn to quit. And if I went back in time and told myself to run from my ex, I would be too stubborn to do so.

Life has a funny way of working out. I feel like I messed up my 20's, but if I had gone with my original plan, I would be an English teacher, which in hindsight seems like a horrific nightmare. I would have lived at home longer, which may have been financially beneficial but I wouldn't have learned to stand on my own two feet the way I have. I may not have learned how to cope with horrible bosses and how to draw the courage to quit a job when it gets bad. I wouldn't have learned how to cope when your tuition is due, you have two cars with transmissions that blow up, and you're only making $11 an hour. I certainly wouldn't have learned how to  keep swimming when you're drowning through heartbreak and depression.

Most of all, taking those detours, though they were twisty and rocky, helped me find a job that I love. I had never even heard of physical therapy back in my early 20's and didn't know the field was a thing that existed. I did have the notion of going to massage therapy school (a notion I didn't pursue as my parents refused to support it), and when I thought about going back to that plan in my mid 20's I discovered the physical therapy program. Now I have a job that pays "real world" money, and even after almost a year of employment I still am loving it. I've moved across the state, made new friends, and life is starting to look up for a change.

So I fucked up my 20's. But I've lived, and I've learned. I can't honestly say I'd have done it any differently, despite the dark times. I'm starting my 30's with more knowledge and a better foundation. Let's make this next decade an amazing one!