A Facebook friend who I haven’t seen in person for a few years announced the other day that she had turned 30. She wrote a Tumblr post looking back on her 20s and ruminating on what she had learned.
I knew how she felt. My 20s were nothing if not dramatic, in both the best and worst ways. When I was 30, I decided I had gained some trial-by-fire wisdom that featured way too much fire, and that I needed to do something with it.
So I walked away from some self-created messes that still trigger guilt pangs, and got a nice, stable job in a new city I really liked. Within months, I made new friends, enjoyed new experiences, had a little bit of money for the first time, and finally felt like I had a pretty good bead on things. This was where I would settle, and this was what I would settle for, and I was good with that.
Then the news came out of Little Rock, the city I’d left eight months earlier: The Washington reporter was leaving my old employer to work for the competition. I’d wanted that job the last time around but I’d been rightfully nosed out. Now the job was there again.
I made a few phone calls. The job was famous for paying exactly crap, but this time, I was told I might be able to get crap with a cherry on top. It still would be a huge pay cut, once the cost of living in D.C. was factored in, and my benefits would also take a serious hacking. And this would not be a nice, stable job. This would be a cutthroat competition against a two-man bureau of kick-ass reporters I knew well, and even mild failure could lead to swift unemployment.
So: Peace and stability vs. chaos and instability.
The choice seemed simple.
Naturally, I went the other way.
I rationalized this boneheaded choice by saying that I could suck it up for a couple of years, beef up my resume, move back to the South and make a living as an editor. Many a journalist has made a similar pledge before moving to Washington. Many of those people are still here.
I hit town and…bang! My personal life took off, I met a whole slew of journalists my age whose experiences echoed mine, and then Bill Clinton, who I just assumed would never run for president in ’92 after his last-minute ’88 implosion…well, you know that story. And I started playing in new bands with new musicians. And I met the woman who became my wife. And my geekboy hobby suddenly became a real job that paid real money. And things have been weird ever since.
All of this stemmed from the decision I made when I was 30. I could have lived a peaceful, comfortable life in a peaceful, comfortable town. Instead, I chose the path that was covered in fog.
But that’s the thing about fog: When it burns away, something beautiful might be revealed. And 30 might have marked an end for me. Instead, it was just the beginning.
Previously: Our 15th wedding anniversary | Hokum home
Strange Randy – I did the same thing. And it greatly effected *your* life. I made that same type of choice. I had finally finished college and had two job offers: one in sleepy Mobile Alabama, in the deep south at a job that paid very well for the south and for the time, the other in Washington DC at a job that was to be a challenge at best for significantly less money. Mobile would have been safe and I likely would have found a southern bride and settled for what would have been a predictable life given my “Southern raisin”. But what fun would have that been – and as you know, my mother raised us that this life was not a dress rehearsal.
So I moved from Florida to Crofton MD and within 6 months your future bride (and my old roommate) had followed me from Florida and was sleeping on my living room floor. That decision along with an odd classified listing in a throwaway paper doomed you to a wife.