I turn 40 today. It’s a milestone I have been both looking forward to and dreading. Personally I really like the idea of growing older. I am definitely more mature, and much more inclined towards the intellectual than I was even 5 years ago (although in truth I always have been motivated to learn more about the world around me and how it works). For what it’s worth I definitely am riding the wave of young Gen X and old Millennial thought that your 20s is where you flailed around aimlessly for some sense of direction, hoping that something would stick. The 30s was for starting to get your shit together, but… not quite. My 40s, that’s where things get real. That’s when everything is finally going to come together. Or at least that’s my hope. Seeing how it’s starting, with the flaming dumpster fire of 2020 and the hope inspired by the Biden administration, it really could go either way.
If I have learned anything over my 40 years on this earth it is that a lot can happen in 10 years. Case in point, my 30s. Over the last 10 years I have left a marriage, started a new marriage, had two children, left a job and started a small farm. I have built a house, started a blog, partially written a book, and started grad school. I have gained and lost more friends than I can count. I have been homeless and middle class, sleeping in my car, friend’s spare rooms, and now my own king size bed. I have laughed until I cried, I have cried until I laughed, and through it all I have survived. It has all made me who I am today, and I wouldn’t take away a moment of it.
In the next ten years I will be completing my Masters, applying to and hopefully completing a PhD, and finding a job that will allow me to pursue a career in agriculture policy change. I will meet influential people and practice my growing foreign language skills while I finally get back to traveling the world (including a planned trip to Chile in 2023). I will read hundreds of books, publish works of my own (be it articles, or books, or both). Children will grow up and move out to pursue their own dreams. Our house will look more finished (because lets be real, a house is never actually finished). The farm will grow, the blog will grow. With all hope Chris will work the apiary full time. Through all this we will survive, because that’s what we do.
Thank you all for being here with me, and here is to another 10 years!
