October 4, 2023
This is a very rough draft of my thoughts on the decades of life starting at age 20. The two decades before are either too difficult to remember or too full of changes to capture. My twenties were a bust. I hated being young and new at adult life, not fully treated like the adult that I was. Twenties is a definite disadvantage in that way. Also, I was adrift in my twenties going on strange and unfulfilling dates, not sure how exactly to manage money or what to spend free time on. Thirties was better, even a favorite decade. Still looking young, it’s a time when experience as an adult pays off. Though bad things may happen in the thirties, there’s energy to spare to overcome adversity, to pick up, change trajectory, and maintain confidence.
I did like the forties, too. Still being “carded” when purchasing alcoholic beverages, I felt like I was getting away with something. Forties was fun. Parenting is not necessarily easier if teens are in the picture but the skill set to handle teens was there for me, thank goodness. Fifties was better than twenties, almost as good as forties, not as great as thirties because life is gaining on you by then and it takes some mental sorting out. Fifties faces look fifties and sixties, even more so. Can’t get away with being “young” anymore. It’s a shift. Being in the sixties decade now, the end is ahead for a few of our peers at this point in life, and the possibility of the end is something to reckon with. Not yet being in my seventies, it sure looks like people get over that and live on as if life has no end, unless there’s a diagnosis and that’s for a different story altogether.
Seventies seems good though I would not want to be working at a fast food restaurant in that decade. I always wonder what happened when I see seventy-somethings working in those sorts of entry-level jobs. But maybe the job is a chance to get out and socialize. Not saying older people don’t enjoy it. I wouldn’t.
Sixties are pretty good. A lot is under the belt and wisdom is one of them. My patience is thinner, my ability to cut out negativity kicks up several notches. I like that about this age and being that way in the twenties would be weird. It would create a freak show… someone in their twenties with the experience and wisdom of someone in their sixties. So the twenties as they were for me had to be. And the sixties has to be. In fact, every decade has to be. I am sure each person has a favorite decade, and one where they are most themselves, another decade or two that went sideways but hopefully not too sideways or for too long.
I think a decade is a good way to think about life as people. It breaks life down into manageable descriptions. And each of us has a unique look at our decades. It’s a fun, serious, interesting, uncomplicated way to look at life. And worth it