Feels like a lot of not wishing I’d done anything differently. A lot of being okay with mistakes thus far. It feels like redefining the term mistakes and recategorizing what fits. The definition isn’t the same as when I turned twenty. It’s less harsh, more giving, more scraped knee than a broken bone.

It is one week from my 30th birthday, and I am completely immersed in what people say about entering the era of your twenties, the resounding declaration that this, the twenties period, is the time for mistakes.

I understand the encouragement: you’re young, you are learning, the risk is low, and theoretically, there is more time to make up for time lost. But if you were to believe, as I do, that there exists no age cap on learning, wouldn’t that mean we’re free to make risky choices long into our fifties, sixties, and beyond?

Did “risky” jump off the screen at you? The word, risky itself seems to lean more into its defining characteristic of “danger” rather than “failure” as you age. Or maybe we’re always inherently scared of the term.

I believe we’re free to move through risk for as long as we desire. We should tell more people on their seventieth birthday – this is it, the era of mistakes; live it up and have fun!

I’m sure we all hope we know enough by then. That we feel some sort of settlement to our bones or wayward hearts.

It is this busy life, after all, which teaches us that settlement is not meant for death or lack of will but rather because we’ve done it. We chased the desires in and out and through blunders.

That is the idealistic life. We’ve tried everything our hearts reached for, good, bad, or otherwise, with an outcome and a lesson to match.

I hope I live until I reach so far I can feel the stars. I hope I live long enough to feel old enough to go.