lately i've been thinking

I am going to be turning 30 soon and it has got me thinking about the past 10 years of my life...

My 20s were NUTS, but good nonetheless...

I remember turning 20 and being at the University of Maryland living the basement of a house with 4 amazing Jewish girls that treated me like a little brother. I was studying bio-psych and mathematics. UMD would go on the following year to be the NCAA Champs. I was lost in a sea of questions, hyper activity, climbing, questioning my relationship at the time and getting into trouble every chance that I could.

I remember my 21st birthday party going out to a pizza joint and ordering a whole pitcher of beer only to find out that everyone else I was with couldn't drink it, so I drank it all myself. Then going out to the local bar "Town Hall" spilling drinks and not even remembering when or how I got home.

I remember my niece being born and thinking that I would one day teach her how to throw a punch and how to scale rocks... I remember the day her parents broke up...

I remember packing up a van and my cat and moving across the country with only a few clothes, climbing shoes, some books and a crash pad. A month before I moved my father had been diagnosed with cancer for the second time and it was terminal. I got to California and my friend called while I was out climbing one day to say that a dear friend of mine, who was supposed to come visit me, had committed suicide. Her parents never let us read the note. I never got to say goodbye.

I remember breaking up with my girl friend of 5 years, whom I had moved out here with. I was lost, so was she. We couldn't help each other and we were young.

I remember meeting Neil in the gym, or as we called him back then "slick", a name given to him by a climbing friend of ours because he kept falling off of the slopers. I remember saying that I needed a place to crash since I had just broken up with my girl friend.

I remember sleeping on the couch for a month before I could move into a room... and I remember all the trouble I got into in that house...

I remember him moving away...

I remember meeting for the first time the women that would one day become my wife and thinking that she was not just beautiful but stunning and out of my league.

I remember the day that my father passed away and drinking a whole bottle of expensive wine that I had just bought that day in Sacramento during a jazz festival. I remember crying and holding on to anyone who would hold me.

I remember the funeral and thinking that I have never been sadder in my life.

I remember getting married and thinking that I would never be happier in my entire life. And thinking that I wish my dad could be there to see me. That he could have danced with my beautiful wife...

I remember an infinite amount of things both good and bad.. both amazing and heart breaking... This was my 20s... and I wouldn't take any of it back....

except my father...

Now that I am moving from my 20s into my 30s I hope that when I am 40 I will look back and think, there were hard times but damn what a fucking blast!

Cheers and here is to the next 10!