Yesterday my older and wiser sister-in-law (sorry B, couldn’t resist) asked me how I was spending the last day of my twenties. Last day of my twenties? Oh, yeah, I guess it is. Well, the answer was how I spend most of my Tuesdays these days...on my work computer, wondering if the Tuesday Haggen coupons are going to be any good.
Then she asked me how I spent the last day of my teens. Oh, wow. I guess that was the last time I moved into a new ‘decade’ of life. The last day of my teens...so it was late August of 1999. I was about to start my sophomore year at Western and right about now I would have been getting ready for RA camp. Geek! Little did I know that in two weeks, my boyfriend would dump me and we’d spend the next 2 years torturing each other. August of 1999 I was 3 weeks from meeting my future best friends in Beta stack 6. That same fall I would apply to the University of Edinburgh and get accepted. I would start planning my first trip abroad. I had a green iMac. It was still 5 years until I got a cell phone or a credit card. Jake Loya was a Senior at Ferndale High School, only 5 miles but a million years away.
The last 10 years have been huge. So, I spent the last evening of my twenties sipping a napcap of Talisker on the back patio with JLo. We cheers’d to my evolution thus far; hoping that my next 10 years would be as fun and eventful, although I have my doubts. My twenties have given my thirties some stiff competition. I have no desire to live my twenties over again; lets be clear. But there are some pretty priceless experiences and memories I want to keep in my back pocket - I’d like to be able to pull them out on a regular basis and enjoy them.
I have done some ridiculous stuff to my hair. I’m sure right now Cass is going, um, yeah, your hair has definitely improved. At 20, I was bleaching my hair in the dorm bathroom with about enough bleach to sanitize the whole building. It was long and I was yet to discover the beauty of having it thinned. It was huge and white. Beautiful? No. Always a bit orange at the roots? Yes. When I went to Edinburgh, I doubted being able to find the quality of bleach to which I’d been so accustomed ($4 at Riteaid?). So, I decided to dye it back to its natural color - but I had no idea what that was. I’d been coloring my hair since 1992 at Amanda Brown’s house. Quick math, since I was 13. I was pretty sure it was not as dark as my brown-eyed sisters, but my roots were certainly not blond. So, why not try black. I left for Edinburgh with long, scraggly, black/brown splotchy braids. Cute. Operation bandana (no, this was not cool in Europe, but I also wore my overalls...I couldn’t be bothered to look European). About 6 months after I came home, for my 22nd birthday, my roommates treated me to an actual salon coloring at Cat n Fiddle in Fairhaven. Ah, that’s better. I was hooked. My only hiatus from coloring was for a 9 month Skagway/travel year in which I did go back to my natural color to discover that my natural color is grey. Oh, wow. When did that happen?
But then I started thinking about what I would really really like if I could have ANYTHING on my birthday. And I thought...I’d like to wake up tomorrow morning at 2010 Mill Avenue in 2001. I want to smell teriyaki coming in my bedroom window. I want to hear the shower going and figure it must be Lisa Marie; no one else in this house showers on Saturdays. I want Karen to be making coffee downstairs and I want all of us to go crawl in Emily’s huge bed. To have my best friends all in our pajamas and under one roof and having nothing bigger going on than a paper due or a 4 hour shift at the Colophon. I don’t want to be 21 forever and I certainly don’t wish away my home with my loving husband, but when I think about indulgence and a luxury of of my twenties, living with my best friends comes immediately to mind. I miss them every day.
I want to remember how nervous I was to go abroad by myself for the first time. Mom & Dad took me to PDX in September of 2000. I almost threw up 3 times at the airport; I was so nervous. Hands down The Most nervous I’ve ever been. And then I want to remember how it felt to get on the bus and arrive downtown Edinburgh and think I had just landed in the middle of a fairytale. I lost a certain amount of sanity through that experience and have foregone many normal and healthy life experiences in my pursuit of travel.
I like thinking about how God has changed my life course over the last 10 years; usually opposing my will as a stubborn and distrustful child. When I applied to grad school, I was convinced I wanted to be a teacher. I got into NYU, I was SO excited to move to New York and go to school. Well...the money didn’t really happen and I ended up getting just a certificate at Western. If I’d gone to NYU, I would have missed the year that Jake and I started dating. If I had $60,000 in student loans, I could have never afforded to go to Skagway or spend the majority of my twenties unemployed. When I finished my cert, I discovered teaching was not for me. I applied for 15 (yes, 15) jobs in ministry. I didn’t get a single one. Notta one. I was sure that was the calling on my life. IF I would have gotten a job in ministry, I never would have gone to Skagway. Working in Skagway has afforded me travel and experience in an industry I love and a career direction I hope someday actually works out. Oh, yeah, and it was a kick ass time for four years. When I lost my job in Skagway, I really felt like the rug got jerked out from under me. But, if it wouldn’t have happened exactly when it did, I wouldn’t have been offered my current job and Jake might not have had a high school friend connection at the lab. We decided to buy a house. If we had bought it any earlier, we wouldn’t have qualified for the first time homebuyer credit. If we bought it any later, the FHA program that financed our first time homebuyer mortgage wouldn’t have existed (HUD pulled the program 6 weeks after we closed). Looking at my life with the perspective of ‘God loves me and only wants good for me’ is one I hope to keep closer to my attitude in my next decade of life.
I was 21 when I met Jake Loya. He was 18. We don’t remember meeting. He remembers the first time he saw me and describes me in such an unfortunate way, I’m not sure I like to hear it - though he always ends it with you were so cute! Really, cause that doesn’t sound like a cute girl, that’s never been my strong suit. But I like thinking about our friendship before anything got romantic. I like remembering things about him that so impressed me - things I still admire about him some, um, lots of years later. I like thinking about that night in the spring of 2002 when he & Anna dropped me off at my house and he told her he’d like to marry someone like me. And I like remembering once manipulating a carpool so only Jake and I rode in my car down to an INN Christmas volunteer day in Seattle. That was Christmas 2002 and yes, I had a boyfriend. The next December (2003) I got off a plane in Oviedo, Spain and risking all kinds of ego finally told him how I felt. He had his camera around his neck and was wearing a plaid button-up shirt. We went on our first date that night and had warm white Russians. Six years later, I'm so thankful for him and for his profound impact on my life.
A few more highlights; seeing Jake finish a marathon, month-long road trip with Cass, standing on the Great Wall, the Corner Café, moving in with Jake, rescuing my keys out of Walli with a fishing pole, hours of Trivial Pursuit, beer pong at the Pank House, Ski to Sea caravans, my sisters moving to Bellingham, Super Store & Mr. Moon thinking I was Greg’s wife, five life-changing mission trips, my first garden, being really skinny at my wedding, surprising Karen in Texas, surprising Cass with a trip home, surprising Hayley with a trip to San Fran, Anna & Shan’s Moroccan shower, discovering hookah, getting cable in my bedroom, falling in love with cooking, Jake falling in love with Volvos, going through the Panama Canal, Shea & I getting a flat tire on I-5 at 11:00 pm on Christmas Eve, grizzly hunting with Shan & Sev, cruising cruising cruising, driving a bus from Fairbanks to Skagway, crossing the Russian border illegally, finding $20 in a Skagway storm drain, singing really loud with Greg, almost getting washed away down the Deschutes, drinking mulled wine in tiny apartments, finally getting health insurance (my parents were right, its actually kind of nice), perfecting travel packing, shopping for Hayley’s baby.
I’ve never really thought about my age. I have no biological clock to speak of - I really only think of my age as relative, ‘I’m the oldest’ or ‘am I too young or too old to wear this’. But today I’m really thinking about the number. I’m 30. Ok. I have a lot of wonderful things to take with me into my thirties. I hope I change; I hope I keep growing. I guess that’s sort of inevitable if you’re analytical; life doesn’t just happen to you. You know its coming and then you pick it apart, praising yourself for the positive parts and beating yourself up with the negative parts. I hope in the next 10 years, I chill out a little bit. I hope I grow in patience and relax in situations I can’t control. I hope I write more, try more, run more, lose a few more, see more and love my husband more.
I hope on the last day of my thirties, that I can list as easily as I have this morning, all the fantastic, moving and stiring events of the previous ten years. I hope I’m not sitting at my work computer wondering about the Haggen coupons. I hope God will continue to change my course, even if he has to take me kicking and screaming (don’t worry, He’s used to it). I hope (as morbid as this sounds) that I have another 10 years with my family, biological and otherwise. I wonder if Cassie will ever get another perm? Will Hayley have 8 more babies? Will I finally get my coveted British work visa? Like Tim McGraw says, will I eat a few more salads and not stay up so late? Will Comcast finally carry BBC World?
Welp, here I go into my thirties. Sure, why not?
Then she asked me how I spent the last day of my teens. Oh, wow. I guess that was the last time I moved into a new ‘decade’ of life. The last day of my teens...so it was late August of 1999. I was about to start my sophomore year at Western and right about now I would have been getting ready for RA camp. Geek! Little did I know that in two weeks, my boyfriend would dump me and we’d spend the next 2 years torturing each other. August of 1999 I was 3 weeks from meeting my future best friends in Beta stack 6. That same fall I would apply to the University of Edinburgh and get accepted. I would start planning my first trip abroad. I had a green iMac. It was still 5 years until I got a cell phone or a credit card. Jake Loya was a Senior at Ferndale High School, only 5 miles but a million years away.
The last 10 years have been huge. So, I spent the last evening of my twenties sipping a napcap of Talisker on the back patio with JLo. We cheers’d to my evolution thus far; hoping that my next 10 years would be as fun and eventful, although I have my doubts. My twenties have given my thirties some stiff competition. I have no desire to live my twenties over again; lets be clear. But there are some pretty priceless experiences and memories I want to keep in my back pocket - I’d like to be able to pull them out on a regular basis and enjoy them.
I have done some ridiculous stuff to my hair. I’m sure right now Cass is going, um, yeah, your hair has definitely improved. At 20, I was bleaching my hair in the dorm bathroom with about enough bleach to sanitize the whole building. It was long and I was yet to discover the beauty of having it thinned. It was huge and white. Beautiful? No. Always a bit orange at the roots? Yes. When I went to Edinburgh, I doubted being able to find the quality of bleach to which I’d been so accustomed ($4 at Riteaid?). So, I decided to dye it back to its natural color - but I had no idea what that was. I’d been coloring my hair since 1992 at Amanda Brown’s house. Quick math, since I was 13. I was pretty sure it was not as dark as my brown-eyed sisters, but my roots were certainly not blond. So, why not try black. I left for Edinburgh with long, scraggly, black/brown splotchy braids. Cute. Operation bandana (no, this was not cool in Europe, but I also wore my overalls...I couldn’t be bothered to look European). About 6 months after I came home, for my 22nd birthday, my roommates treated me to an actual salon coloring at Cat n Fiddle in Fairhaven. Ah, that’s better. I was hooked. My only hiatus from coloring was for a 9 month Skagway/travel year in which I did go back to my natural color to discover that my natural color is grey. Oh, wow. When did that happen?
I was thinking yesterday about how on your birthday you get ‘anything you want’. I have requested an entire Round Table pepperoni pizza all to myself. And I’m not doing any dishes today. And I’d like to eat an entire box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and maybe drink like 5 cokes and eat 5 orders of Burgerville fries & tartar sauce. Yes, in the last 10 years I’ve gone organic, off processed and fast foods. But, DAMN I could use some on my birthday. I have an indulgent spirit. If we’ve met you know this.
But then I started thinking about what I would really really like if I could have ANYTHING on my birthday. And I thought...I’d like to wake up tomorrow morning at 2010 Mill Avenue in 2001. I want to smell teriyaki coming in my bedroom window. I want to hear the shower going and figure it must be Lisa Marie; no one else in this house showers on Saturdays. I want Karen to be making coffee downstairs and I want all of us to go crawl in Emily’s huge bed. To have my best friends all in our pajamas and under one roof and having nothing bigger going on than a paper due or a 4 hour shift at the Colophon. I don’t want to be 21 forever and I certainly don’t wish away my home with my loving husband, but when I think about indulgence and a luxury of of my twenties, living with my best friends comes immediately to mind. I miss them every day.
I want to remember how nervous I was to go abroad by myself for the first time. Mom & Dad took me to PDX in September of 2000. I almost threw up 3 times at the airport; I was so nervous. Hands down The Most nervous I’ve ever been. And then I want to remember how it felt to get on the bus and arrive downtown Edinburgh and think I had just landed in the middle of a fairytale. I lost a certain amount of sanity through that experience and have foregone many normal and healthy life experiences in my pursuit of travel.
I like thinking about how God has changed my life course over the last 10 years; usually opposing my will as a stubborn and distrustful child. When I applied to grad school, I was convinced I wanted to be a teacher. I got into NYU, I was SO excited to move to New York and go to school. Well...the money didn’t really happen and I ended up getting just a certificate at Western. If I’d gone to NYU, I would have missed the year that Jake and I started dating. If I had $60,000 in student loans, I could have never afforded to go to Skagway or spend the majority of my twenties unemployed. When I finished my cert, I discovered teaching was not for me. I applied for 15 (yes, 15) jobs in ministry. I didn’t get a single one. Notta one. I was sure that was the calling on my life. IF I would have gotten a job in ministry, I never would have gone to Skagway. Working in Skagway has afforded me travel and experience in an industry I love and a career direction I hope someday actually works out. Oh, yeah, and it was a kick ass time for four years. When I lost my job in Skagway, I really felt like the rug got jerked out from under me. But, if it wouldn’t have happened exactly when it did, I wouldn’t have been offered my current job and Jake might not have had a high school friend connection at the lab. We decided to buy a house. If we had bought it any earlier, we wouldn’t have qualified for the first time homebuyer credit. If we bought it any later, the FHA program that financed our first time homebuyer mortgage wouldn’t have existed (HUD pulled the program 6 weeks after we closed). Looking at my life with the perspective of ‘God loves me and only wants good for me’ is one I hope to keep closer to my attitude in my next decade of life.
I was 21 when I met Jake Loya. He was 18. We don’t remember meeting. He remembers the first time he saw me and describes me in such an unfortunate way, I’m not sure I like to hear it - though he always ends it with you were so cute! Really, cause that doesn’t sound like a cute girl, that’s never been my strong suit. But I like thinking about our friendship before anything got romantic. I like remembering things about him that so impressed me - things I still admire about him some, um, lots of years later. I like thinking about that night in the spring of 2002 when he & Anna dropped me off at my house and he told her he’d like to marry someone like me. And I like remembering once manipulating a carpool so only Jake and I rode in my car down to an INN Christmas volunteer day in Seattle. That was Christmas 2002 and yes, I had a boyfriend. The next December (2003) I got off a plane in Oviedo, Spain and risking all kinds of ego finally told him how I felt. He had his camera around his neck and was wearing a plaid button-up shirt. We went on our first date that night and had warm white Russians. Six years later, I'm so thankful for him and for his profound impact on my life.
I got to be there when my dad & brother when to Europe for the first time. I tried to kill them driving on the wrong side of the street. I got to see my baby sister receive her Master’s degree. I got to spend a summer driving my brother around Puget Sound to baseball tournaments (Mom & Dad were good employers). I got to stand with my brother and sister while our sister married our dear Brother in Law. One my favorite moments was watching the video of my sister telling our mom she’s going to be a grandma. This has been a pretty good 10 years for the Stellfoxes.
When my twenties began, I had 2 countries under my belt - the U.S. and Canada (Expo ‘86 and the ‘96 PHS band tour!). Today, I have 34. Jake and I will get to 100; its our goal. I treasure every minute of every trip and love that the following people have involved themselves in my international experience - Megan, Erik, Mike, Brian, (yes, this is in chronological order), Em, Jake, Cass, Kelly, Anna, Mary, Shan, Jeremy, Erin, Marty, Mom, Dad, Shea, Jackson, Hunter & Laura...man, am I forgetting anyone? What a great time’s been had.
When my twenties began, I had 2 countries under my belt - the U.S. and Canada (Expo ‘86 and the ‘96 PHS band tour!). Today, I have 34. Jake and I will get to 100; its our goal. I treasure every minute of every trip and love that the following people have involved themselves in my international experience - Megan, Erik, Mike, Brian, (yes, this is in chronological order), Em, Jake, Cass, Kelly, Anna, Mary, Shan, Jeremy, Erin, Marty, Mom, Dad, Shea, Jackson, Hunter & Laura...man, am I forgetting anyone? What a great time’s been had.
A few more highlights; seeing Jake finish a marathon, month-long road trip with Cass, standing on the Great Wall, the Corner Café, moving in with Jake, rescuing my keys out of Walli with a fishing pole, hours of Trivial Pursuit, beer pong at the Pank House, Ski to Sea caravans, my sisters moving to Bellingham, Super Store & Mr. Moon thinking I was Greg’s wife, five life-changing mission trips, my first garden, being really skinny at my wedding, surprising Karen in Texas, surprising Cass with a trip home, surprising Hayley with a trip to San Fran, Anna & Shan’s Moroccan shower, discovering hookah, getting cable in my bedroom, falling in love with cooking, Jake falling in love with Volvos, going through the Panama Canal, Shea & I getting a flat tire on I-5 at 11:00 pm on Christmas Eve, grizzly hunting with Shan & Sev, cruising cruising cruising, driving a bus from Fairbanks to Skagway, crossing the Russian border illegally, finding $20 in a Skagway storm drain, singing really loud with Greg, almost getting washed away down the Deschutes, drinking mulled wine in tiny apartments, finally getting health insurance (my parents were right, its actually kind of nice), perfecting travel packing, shopping for Hayley’s baby.
I’ve never really thought about my age. I have no biological clock to speak of - I really only think of my age as relative, ‘I’m the oldest’ or ‘am I too young or too old to wear this’. But today I’m really thinking about the number. I’m 30. Ok. I have a lot of wonderful things to take with me into my thirties. I hope I change; I hope I keep growing. I guess that’s sort of inevitable if you’re analytical; life doesn’t just happen to you. You know its coming and then you pick it apart, praising yourself for the positive parts and beating yourself up with the negative parts. I hope in the next 10 years, I chill out a little bit. I hope I grow in patience and relax in situations I can’t control. I hope I write more, try more, run more, lose a few more, see more and love my husband more.
I hope on the last day of my thirties, that I can list as easily as I have this morning, all the fantastic, moving and stiring events of the previous ten years. I hope I’m not sitting at my work computer wondering about the Haggen coupons. I hope God will continue to change my course, even if he has to take me kicking and screaming (don’t worry, He’s used to it). I hope (as morbid as this sounds) that I have another 10 years with my family, biological and otherwise. I wonder if Cassie will ever get another perm? Will Hayley have 8 more babies? Will I finally get my coveted British work visa? Like Tim McGraw says, will I eat a few more salads and not stay up so late? Will Comcast finally carry BBC World?
Welp, here I go into my thirties. Sure, why not?
