A Birthday, Boy...

So, I turned 29 today.  29 is an interesting number; it just feels so final; like this is the last page in a very long chapter in my life and what I write on it must not only summarize and relate to what came before, but must also set the reader up for whatever may happen in the next chapter.

It's strange, I look back and think of all the things that I wanted or expected to happen in my 20's.  I have to acknowledge that I'm nowhere near where I thought I would be.  I always thought that I would close out my 20's with a wife on my arm and maybe two or three kids under foot.  I took for granted that I would be well on my way in establishing myself in a career.  I expected a mortgage, car payments, and a 401k.  Never did I imagine that I would be living with roommates, out of work, and so damaged from past relationships that I can't even manage to get another one started.

Of course, not all of my 20's were so marred by apparent failure.  There were some great times and experiences in which I found out not only who I am but also who I want to be.  Serving a mission in Chile, my time at BYU-Idaho, a summer working in Alaska, and a semester spent studying in Slovenia were all very significant, positive experiences that stretched and broadened my horizons beyond anything I could have ever imagined as a teenager.  Those experiences forcibly yanked me out of the carefully constructed cocoon of my teenage years.  I overcame the crippling anxiety that haunted me throughout junior high and high school and learned to love and accept some of the, until then, hated quirks of my personality or temperament.  My twenties taught me about life.  What it's all about (42), and what is truly important within it (sushi).  My passions, strengths and weaknesses seemed to become more sharply defined and apparent.  But probably most importantly, my twenties taught me how to be a true christian (even though I still have to fight every day to be so) and what it means to be a child of God.

My twenties didn't go where I thought they would, but maybe they went where they needed to go.  There certainly were a lot of trials and difficulties (most of them of my own making), but out of those trials there was also tremendous opportunitiy for growth and learning.  The last couple of years have seemed a little heavy on the trials (this last year in particular), but luckily my twenties aren't over yet and I still have that one last page to write.  Who knows where it will go and what things might happen to set up the next chapter?  If I know my literature, and I think I do, just when things seem hopeless and lost to a certain, inevitable end; all of a sudden:

TWIST!

And the story goes in a whole other direction...