Every Year in My Twenties

This month, I’m celebrating two big milestones: my 30th birthday on the 27th and 10 years of blogging on this website. In honor of that, I want to write a post to celebrate, and to commemorate my favorite decade of my life so far. I don’t think it’s necessary to go over all the details and summarize everything I’ve done during this time, because my blog already does a pretty good job at doing that (in a not-so-brief way). Instead, I want to just focus on where I was in life, and what I was doing each year on October 27.

2012 – Age 20

• Living in my parent’s basement in Iowa
• Working as a licensed massage therapist
• Attending college online, taking 18 credit hours
• In a long distance relationship with my long time best friend, and hoping that wedding bells were in our near future
• Trying out blogging as a creative outlet

I welcomed my 20’s by celebrating at home with my family, going out to eat, giving chair massages at a Halloween party. My sisters gave me Taylor Swift’s new album Red as a gift. I stayed up way too late talking to Curtis, as I usually did thanks to our different time zones. We were hoping at this time that we would be able to get married the next summer, and Curtis’ progress with getting into the NUPOC program with the Navy made it seem like it was a real possibility.

2013 – Age 21

• Living in an apartment in Tucson, AZ
• Married to Curtis for 3 months
• Adjusting to the dry heat and higher altitude
• Making a habit of doing adventurous things on a weekly basis — short hikes, letterboxing, and had just taken a weekend camping trip to Albuquerque
• Attending our new home church and getting to know our new friend group

For my 21st birthday, we traveled to San Diego, CA for the weekend (my first time in CA!). On my actual birthday, we visited Cabrillo National Monument then drove back to Tucson, stopping at Walmart on our way home to buy alcohol for the first time (separating from Curtis at the register because he was still only 20)

2014 – Age 22

• Living in our same apartment in Tucson, AZ
• Brand new “Dog mom” to our 3 month old basset hound
• Had gone from an inexperienced and out of shape hiker to very experienced and constantly setting new goals in the span of a year — was currently training to hike to Havasu Falls the following month
• Missing family a lot, but hosted both of our moms around this time
• Volunteering for our church in Tucson
• Had just upgraded to my first smartphone

We kicked off my 22nd birthday by doing the only acceptable thing, listening to Taylor Swift’s song 22. Curtis had school so I spent the day with Charlotte, and that night we went out to a super fancy restaurant thanks to a gift card I had received. We had just hiked Agua Caliente the previous weekend.

2015 – Age 23

• Living at a friend’s house in Tucson, AZ
• Curtis was doing a temporary assignment to fill the gap between OCS and school in SC
• Had just become Aunt Jessie
• Trying to enjoy AZ while waiting for our move and time in SC to begin
• Upgraded my blog from a free site to a self-hosted site
• Finished a big project working for our church

My 23rd year started with waking up on day 2 of our first ever backpacking trip, camping along the river in Aravaipa Canyon. We finished our hike that day, then returned to our friend’s house where we had a party with friends with pizza & chocolate cake. For the previous weekend’s adventure, we had through hiked Chiricahua National Monument.

2016 – Age 24

• Living in a duplex in Ballston Spa, NY
• Currently living in what we believed was the Best Fall Ever — taking multiple trips to Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, hiking all over the Adirondacks and Catskills and fully experiencing fall in the Northeast
• Was loving hiking and camping, and was cautiously optimistic about winter and hoping to remain outdoorsy
• Voted in my third presidential election

The fall of 2016 remains one of our favorite seasons of life, and even though my birthday fell on a weekday it was no exception. It was supposed to rain all day, but instead we had our first magical snowfall, and Curtis was supposed to work 12 hours but ended up getting an early out because of the snow. I made my favorite pasta dish and cheesecake. Curtis gave me Mean Girls on DVD. The following weekend, we hiked Pillsbury Mountain (and learned how hard hiking mountains in wet snow is)

2017 – Age 25

• Living in the Navy Lodge hotel on Ford Island on Oahu, Hawaii
• One month in to our time on Hawaii
• Struggling with all the logistical parts of moving to Hawaii, like car registration
• In the middle of Escrow for our house
• Had recently just taken my first solo trip with Charlotte during our move to Hawaii

In contrast to 2016, my 25th birthday came during a more difficult season, but I tried to make the most of it. I collected 24 tiny 1 oz packages of cream cheese from the hotel continental breakfast and made myself a no-bake cheesecake in our hotel room. Curtis worked for 12 hours, and it was his first time on a “moving” sub, though his sub was just moving from shipyard to dry dock. That night, he came back to the hotel with news that they were sending him on another sub next week and he’d be gone for several weeks. I was sad about that, but tried to not let it affect me that day. That evening we took a sunset walk to see the USS Utah, then started watching Stranger Things 2. The next day’s adventure took us up Mount Olympus in the Ko’olau mountains.

2018 – Age 26

• Living in our tiny house in Kailua, Hawaii
• Was just thankful to have Curtis on land at this time/for most of this year, but it was a very negative environment and we straight up weren’t having a great time
• After a year of always trying to see the bright side and make the most of our time on Hawaii, I identify this weekend as the time when I gave in to the fact that I wasn’t happy here and just started living for the small things to get through each day. The changes may be subtle, but when I look at my blog and social media accounts I can remember the shift in my mind.
• As a way of coping, I downloaded PokemonGo. Honestly the best thing I did for myself at that time!
• Besides struggles with Curtis’ job, I had a lot of anxiety around problems that we were facing at this time, including car troubles, house repairs, and Charlie having health issues.

Despite all the anxiety and sadness I was feeling around this time, this weekend wasn’t all that bad. My birthday fell on a Saturday so Curtis had most of the day off, we hiked one of our favorite trails, the Old Pali Highway, and made our favorite stir fry dish for dinner. The following day we did a hike I had been wanting to do for a while, the Maunawili Trail.

2019 – Age 27

• Living in our house in Kailua, Hawaii
• After last year’s struggles, we were doing much better even though Curtis’ sub was now more active
• We had just enjoyed port calls in Ketchikan and San Diego, and had most of the month together before Curtis left again in November
• We were eagerly anticipating the release of shore tour jobs which would mean we were that much closer to leaving HI

On my 27th (golden birthday) Curtis was coming off overnight watch, and we went to a goodbye brunch for one of his colleagues. Not having anything special planned after that, we started looking for spontaneous things to do and that led us to a tattoo parlor where we made an appointment for our matching tattoos (which we got 2 days later). That evening we hiked Koko Head and had poke and cake from Foodland.

2020 – Age 28

• Living in our apartment in Bellevue, Nebraska
• Two months into Curtis’ shore tour
• Still in the “honeymoon stage” with living in Nebraska, and loving our weekly adventures (which we had much more time for with both of us working remote)

2020 was the year for pandemic birthdays for most people, but mine didn’t look much different than other years — I was just in a new location. We walked around Walnut Creek and made stir fry together for dinner. The first snow of the season had arrived the day before, but my birthday was a beautiful sunny day. The previous weekend’s adventure had been hiking in Schramm Park, and the following weekend we hiked at Indian Caves State Park.

2021 – Age 29

• Living in our apartment in Bellevue, NE
• Over a year in to Curtis’ shore tour, and had no idea if he would still be with the military or not next year
• After spending most of 2021 traveling, we were at home and enjoying down time before our final trip of the year
• Had just found out I was going to be an Aunt once again, this time with the first niece on my side of the family
• I had lost my first grandparent earlier that year, and was still processing the grief — especially that comes with each first day lived without them — like in this case, my first birthday without him.

On my 29th birthday, it was a rainy day so we spent most of it indoors. We got sushi to go from a restaurant across the street. That weekend, we went out for brunch and a little morning date in downtown Omaha. I think the feeling of change was imminent at this time, but we were just thoroughly enjoying this stage of Curtis’ job while we could.

2022 – Age 30

• “In between” homes, having just moved out of Bellevue this month
• Staying with my family and celebrating my birthday with them for the first time in a decade
• In a time of transition job-wise, preparing for what’s coming up next

In some ways, my 30th birthday looked a little like my 20th — I’m back at my parents, I got to celebrate with my family, my sisters gave me Taylor Swift’s newest album. We had dinner at Oyama a few days before, we spent the morning with our almost 6 month old niece, went for a hike to enjoy the beautiful fall weather and leaves, and made pizzas at home that evening. There’s a lot of uncertainty and change happening in our lives right now. But overall, things turned out better than I could’ve hoped they would 10 years ago. Curtis and I are in our 10th year of marriage, and we got to spend the whole day together, I get to see my family much more frequently than I have throughout my 20s, and God has blessed us in so many ways that we don’t have to worry too much about the year of change ahead of us. Here’s to the start of my 30s, and here’s to another decade of blogging!