Looking Back at 20

Looking back at 20+

Moi at 22. I still hang out in cemeteries, though I'm not as cutesy goth.

The big 3-0 is steadily creeping up on me, there are only 5 days left of my 20's. It's funny, I've walked this Earth for nearly three decades and I feel like my life really only started ten years ago. Maybe that's due to the fact that we typically spend the first 18 years of our lives (at least) under the watchful and sometimes claustrophobic gazes of our parental units, teachers and other adults as we strive to learn and to grow in to the older humans they all hope we'll become. It's only once you hit that threshold and cross in to the land of legal adulthood that you really get to say what goes - at least, to a point. Obviously those who live at home beyond this point are still subject to the rules.

At 24 at my favorite town in all of PA: New Hope.

Lucky me, I didn't have to deal with those things, nor did I want to! I struck out on my own directly from high school. Packed my shit in my little red SUV and drove 700 miles away from home with a maniacal cackle and a vow to never return. Until 6 months later, when I started to venture home every month.. then more frequently... then never left again. Dammit! But, had I never gone back there wouldn't have been so many adventures, so many ridiculous outings and to-dos, not as many laughs and beers and memories good and bad. I wouldn't be the older human I am today, for better or worse, without that return trip.

25 In Hyannis, MA.

And so it is, as my 30th birthday approaches that I sit here and reflect on the last decade of my life... My actual life that I've made and take inventory of all the good and all the bad and wonder "Do I regret anything?" And you know what? I don't. Even all the stupid shit. I don't regret all of the heart ache, all of the hangovers, kisses and misses, plate tossing from the rooftops, sleeping on park benches, scars, screaming matches, laughing until we all peed a little, moving around and the friends who have come and gone and our varied relationships. Even the reasons some of them ended. I don't regret a fucking thing. Not one. From the day I packed my car at 18 through right now: nothing.

27.

That might sound trite and people may think I'm saying my life's been golden and glorious. I can assure you, it has not been. I've fucked up, I've had people fuck me up. I've been convinced I'm a bad person and worthless. I've spent weeks sick as a dog from hurt and sadness, there have been weeks and months where just getting my ass out of bed has been a struggle. But I don't regret it.

And I sincerely hope that as I grow older, as I pass this threshold and continue to grow old and fuck up some more, that as people come and go and save me and break my heart that I can keep saying that. Because this crazy, beautiful, painful fucking life is all mine. And no matter who comes and who goes, where I go or stay, it will always be just that. Mine.

29.

Not only have I been laying low to think and dream and ponder, I've been painting my heart out. I'm currently 22 hours in to a painting I wrote about on my art blog and started another one to work on at the same time. Because, apparently, I'm insane.