40 / I'm an Engineer! / Birthday in Bend / Getting Visitors
Welp I made it to 40! So this is mid-life, ehh? Forty years down; forty to go? I haven't really had any great epiphany about what all this is supposed to mean, but I'm reminded of some cliché about how age is just a number and you can feel however old you want to feel. I like that sentiment. Ten years ago when I turned 30, I said something about how I didn't feel thirty and that's kinda still true today: I don't feel 40 yet.
Through the benefit of this journal and hindsight, I can review my past and I've realized that my thirties were vastly different than my twenties. Once I finished my college education early in my twenties, I languished and stagnated for years as an unemployed, directionless, and anti-social shut-in. Those were the years my peers were out there in the world making names for themselves and building up their lives while I didn't. I was paralyzed by risk aversion stemming from committing to things like jobs and women and even where to live. I irrationally believed that if I committed to something well then that was it for life and I would miss other opportunities later on. I regret a lot of that lost time where I was stuck in indecisiveness, fear, and a lack of belief in myself.
My thirties were different in every possible way. Right as I turned thirty, I seemed to emerge from my shell. I finally got a good solid job and paid off my student loans. I moved out on my own for the first time in my life and I began seriously dating; ultimately meeting my future wife. We bought a house together and we even got a dog. I grew socially and professionally to the point where today, as I turn forty, I'm unrecognizable. Heck I even have a different style and facial hair and a beard now. I wear glasses now and I shave my head occasionally. It's wild. My thirties has proven to be the best decade of my life.
So here we go into my forties! What wild adventures lie ahead? We shall find out. But we're starting out with a bang as my job title at my current job has finally changed to that of Software Engineer. Just that word, "Engineer", is so important as it allows me to professionally call myself an engineer for the rest of my life. I now have actual real-world experience where that was my job title and it means something. I feel like I've arrived somehow.
For my birthday itself, Nicole and I took a small vacation of a few days in Bend, Oregon, thrifting and just being together away from it all. We didn't have a whole lot of success thrifting, but it was a nice break. I also got to check off a bucket list item: Visiting the very last Blockbuster Video rental store in the world which is located in Bend. It was pretty anticlimactic but that's how it should be if you think about it; it's just a normal store with normal customers. We did buy some swag and even discovered some movies we'd never heard of before. Overall, it was a fun nostalgia hit. Good stuff. Once we got home, we threw a humble party and had cake from scratch with homemade frosting! I can't remember the last time I had cake with candles on my birthday... It was very sweet.
We've begun asking friends if they'd like to visit us in our new home and it looks like people are finally comfortable enough with the pandemic situation to take us up on it. We've had Bryan out twice in the space of as many weeks for the first time in almost two years and for a wonderful moment it felt like old times. Bryan was even suggesting to begin making visiting a routine thing again. Before the pandemic, he used to come around our apartment at least once a month to play old Rock Band or Guitar Hero games which we called "band practices". It would be a nice change to get back into that and just have more people to hang out with finally.
Through the benefit of this journal and hindsight, I can review my past and I've realized that my thirties were vastly different than my twenties. Once I finished my college education early in my twenties, I languished and stagnated for years as an unemployed, directionless, and anti-social shut-in. Those were the years my peers were out there in the world making names for themselves and building up their lives while I didn't. I was paralyzed by risk aversion stemming from committing to things like jobs and women and even where to live. I irrationally believed that if I committed to something well then that was it for life and I would miss other opportunities later on. I regret a lot of that lost time where I was stuck in indecisiveness, fear, and a lack of belief in myself.
My thirties were different in every possible way. Right as I turned thirty, I seemed to emerge from my shell. I finally got a good solid job and paid off my student loans. I moved out on my own for the first time in my life and I began seriously dating; ultimately meeting my future wife. We bought a house together and we even got a dog. I grew socially and professionally to the point where today, as I turn forty, I'm unrecognizable. Heck I even have a different style and facial hair and a beard now. I wear glasses now and I shave my head occasionally. It's wild. My thirties has proven to be the best decade of my life.
So here we go into my forties! What wild adventures lie ahead? We shall find out. But we're starting out with a bang as my job title at my current job has finally changed to that of Software Engineer. Just that word, "Engineer", is so important as it allows me to professionally call myself an engineer for the rest of my life. I now have actual real-world experience where that was my job title and it means something. I feel like I've arrived somehow.
For my birthday itself, Nicole and I took a small vacation of a few days in Bend, Oregon, thrifting and just being together away from it all. We didn't have a whole lot of success thrifting, but it was a nice break. I also got to check off a bucket list item: Visiting the very last Blockbuster Video rental store in the world which is located in Bend. It was pretty anticlimactic but that's how it should be if you think about it; it's just a normal store with normal customers. We did buy some swag and even discovered some movies we'd never heard of before. Overall, it was a fun nostalgia hit. Good stuff. Once we got home, we threw a humble party and had cake from scratch with homemade frosting! I can't remember the last time I had cake with candles on my birthday... It was very sweet.
We've begun asking friends if they'd like to visit us in our new home and it looks like people are finally comfortable enough with the pandemic situation to take us up on it. We've had Bryan out twice in the space of as many weeks for the first time in almost two years and for a wonderful moment it felt like old times. Bryan was even suggesting to begin making visiting a routine thing again. Before the pandemic, he used to come around our apartment at least once a month to play old Rock Band or Guitar Hero games which we called "band practices". It would be a nice change to get back into that and just have more people to hang out with finally.