Christy Writes: Twenty Years Down and Where Am I Now?
I have these ridges on my fingernails.
They haven’t always been there and lately they’re more pronounced. I asked a doctor about them recently and he said they’re a common sign of aging. I remember when doctors used to say “This might sting a little” before unleashing something painful, but no matter. I notice these ridges every time I do my nails, but they seem particularly relevant today: the 20th anniversary of the day I left Kansas and headed east, visions of New York City beckoning me.
Twenty years seems a long time in some ways, a mere blink in others. As Gretchen Rubin says, the days are long but the years are short. I was 25 when I got on that eastbound plane, full of the same shallow confidence and borderline manic enthusiasm that today makes 25-year-olds seem like little kids to me.
Over the past 20 years, I’ve had people tell me how impressed they are that I packed up my stuff and moved 1,300 miles away from my family, friends, and job to a place where I knew no one and nothing. I’ve always found that partly flattering, largely puzzling. I was simply following my heart and mind, going where I felt I could grow as a journalist, but perhaps even more than that, where I could expand the circle around me to include more people, more adventures, and more life in general. Like the old cartoon of the little kid heading out, belongings tied up a handkerchief and dangling from a stick over his shoulder, I wanted to seek my fortune (Dear Fortune: still seeking you…), see new faces, hear different accents, walk unfamiliar streets, shop in weird stores and, because I was headed east, to find out once and for all just how much cream cheese constitutes a schmear.
It’s easy sometimes to look back at the last 20 years and regret not reaching all the goals I had in mind when I got on that airplane. I didn’t win a Pulitzer by the time I was 40. I have never had an office in the Empire State Building with an amazing view. I never dated Jerry Seinfeld. I don’t own a house or have creative, hilarious kids. I’m still trying to lose ten pounds and figure out what to do with my hair.
But then I remember the goals I have reached. I’ve challenged myself, inside and out. I took up running when I was well past 30, I published my first book when I was on the shady side of 40. I’ve traveled to places I once only dreamed of, I’ve gotten to know people who have broadened my mind and changed my thinking. I’ve fallen in love. I’ve read books I’d never known existed. I’ve grown as a writer. I’ve interviewed some amazing people. I’ve eaten too much and drank too much (separately and at the same time) before re-learning for good the concept of balance. I’ve laughed until my sides hurt, cried until my insides didn’t, lost friends and found new ones, and every day, I’ve started again. Perhaps most importantly, I’ve learned that I doesn’t matter as much where I’ve done all these things as much as the fact that I’ve done them at all.
I still can’t believe it’s been twenty years. Even with these ridges on my fingernails, I wouldn’t change a thing.
I did go to a party at the Food Network with Mo Rocca a couple of years ago. That was pretty cool.
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