Last lazy Sunday afternoon I busted out stacks of old film photos, some of which I hadn’t looked at in at least a decade, and placed them in their respective albums. Some took a moment to place, faces of the children we used to be staring back, smiling. It was fun going through those old photos, curating them into something someone someday can pick up, open, study. I need to take more old photos.
Monday morning I awoke from a dream. An old friend’s aunt had a cabin in Asheville, I had or rented a fifteen passenger van and was driving door-to-door among old friends, demanding a roadtrip like something out of Blues Brothers.
Ten years ago I was stringing along six and ten month technician gigs. Everyone was, everyone who hadn’t gone on to hide out in academia or sell insurance post-Recession. I got sick of it, went away to grad school. Came back, got a real job, one with salary and benefits that lets me still be a kid most days. Most days, I’m content.
Ten years on, I still wrestle with the ruts. I’ve just realized everyone else does, too.
Maybe that’s the biggest lesson of the past decade, transitioning from twenties to thirties. Moving on, extracting one’s head from their ass, realizing there’s a whole big world out there and a fair share of it’s inhabitants will always be better at any given thing than you are. Learning humility. Learning gratitude. Learning not to sweat the small stuff.
I’m curious to see what I’ll learn in the next decade.
The outside bend. 
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