Thoughts On Turning 30

By Ryan LuckieUncategorized

When Amanda asked me how I felt about turning 30, there was no hesitation…

I feel frickin awesome.
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I’m glad to be done with my 20s… they weren’t that great.  I wasn’t a great student in college, I worked a lot for a couple of years, shook up my life by joining the Peace Corps, which was a mostly disappointing experience, and then I finished strong, meeting and marrying Amanda.

But seriously, what is so great about being in your 20s? Bad apartments, entry level jobs, trying to meet people?  Yuck, yuck, yuck.

I like consistency and security, my 20s were plagued with change.  I lived in the following locations:

1) Parents House – Summer 2004 Part 1
2) Whaley’s Mill with Nick & Pat – Summer 2004 Part 2
3) Geer 405 – Fall 2004-Spring 2005
4) Parent’s House – Summer 2005 Part 1
5) Clemson House – Summer 2005 Part 2
6) Geer 105 – Fall 2005 – Spring 2006
7) Parent’s House – Summer 2006
8) Greenville Apartment Near Fluor – Summer 2006 – August 2007
8.1) Residence Inn – Salem Oregon – Summer 2006 – November 2006
9) Parent’s House – August 2007- September 2007
10) Wilde Wood Apartment – October 2007 – May 2009
11) Runaway Bay Texas – May 2009 – July 2010
11.1) Candlewood Suites Orange County – May 2009-June 2009
12) Parent’s House – July 2010 – August 2010
13) Peace Corps – Homestay – August 2010 – October 2010
14) Peace Corps – Nakyenyi Site – October 2010 – February 2012
15) Parent’s House – February 2012 – March 2012
16) Brian’s House – March 2012 – April 2012
17) The Brio Condo – April 2012 – February 2013
18) Saudi Arabia – February 2013 – Present (Projected through October 2014)

Sadly, when Saudi Arabia is over, it will be the longest I stayed in one place since High School.  I think of my 20s as a time of living for tomorrow, making decisions and sacrifices to bring about the life I wanted later.  At any given time I had a focus, a singular purpose.  First it was graduate, then it was advance in Fluor, then it was make money, then it was help people, then it was dating, and now it is about setting up some level of consistency and security as Amanda and I prepare for our life together.  Hopefully the next 10 years will have fewer than 10 home locations, and even though we love them, not include either of our parents’ homes.

But I can’t be all negative about my 20s.  There were lots of great moments, and even the not so great ones were important and necessary, and all is well that ends well. So lets take a stroll down memory lane… The top 10 high impact memories, events, presences, and experiences of my 20s… in chronological order.

1) Four days after a job interview, Fluor calls and offers me $46,000 a year.  College was not a waste and I’m leaving with a job offer from the 2nd largest engineering and construction company in the nation.

Reaction GIF: excited, dance, Seinfeld
2) While bored in a hotel room in Salem, Oregon I fell in love with a little known television program that had just wrapped up its first season and was showing re-runs in the summer to try to boost viewership.  ‘How I Met Your Mother’ ran most of the length of my 20s, concluding two weeks before my wedding.
3) In 2007 Fluor sent me to Columbia, South Carolina and I got involved in youth ministry at the church I grew up in.  It unlocked something in me, gave me a satisfaction I’d not felt in a while.  My time there would ultimately lead to my resignation from Fluor and my joining the Peace Corps.
4) Also in Columbia… taking it in a different direction than youth group…. I fell in love with craft beer.  Even in college I had been disgusted with the light beer my friends drank and preferred to drink 4 bottles of Sam Adams instead of 8 Busch Lights. While in Columbia, frequenting Green’s, I continued to learn and gain appreciation for craft beer.
5) As previously mentioned, I left Fluor to join the US Peace Corps.  I wasn’t unhappy with Fluor, but needed something different, that I couldn’t get in building power plants in rural Texas.  My life had too many fiscally responsible decisions to this point and not enough risk, adventure,and discovery.  I left on good terms, and in line with my intent, I shook up my life in more ways than I could expect.
6) And then there’s one of the best things that ever happened to me, though not very fun at the time… Peace Corps ended in me getting dumped.  Immediate sadness quickly turned to anger, anger was harnessed into determination, and before the US Government could book me a flight home, I had two unofficial job offers.  I had started Peace Corps with the dream in mind of coming back to the states and jump starting my career, not as a 22 year old desperate for a paycheck but as a professional choosing his career path.  I was getting that chance, but under different timing and circumstances than I’d anticipated.
7) As chronicled in my previous blog, the first question of my job interview with Fluor was “when can you start.”  I was open to a lot of possibilities when I came home, and if Fluor had asked it of me I’d have been in Chicago, NY, or Denver.  Bechtel wanted me in Las Vegas.  Fluor put me back in Greenville with co-workers I was familiar with, family close by, Clemson just an hour away, and of course, southern girls.
8) My assignment with Fluor was as the lead planner of an aluminum mill to be built in Saudi Arabia.  I figured I had one year of job security in Greenville.  I wanted someone in my life, and if I didn’t find them during that year it wasn’t going to be for lack of trying.  Match.com, ChristianMingle.com, EHarmony.com, and CatholicMatch.com all got business from me in the spring of 2012.  My singular purpose was quite clear, and the last few years had washed away the insecurity and nervousness that had prevented me from meeting people before.  
9) In June 2012 I struck gold.  Just about giving up on EHarmony.com after exhausting all 200 of the matches they had provided, I clicked “find me more matches.” This picture came up…
 

The next 6 months of my life went a little like this…

 

 

 

10) And then Saudi Arabia came calling.  My company moved up my time frame for deployment to Saudi Arabia.  I spent practically our entire engagement there and will spend the first 6 months of our marriage there.  It is great for my career, great financially, and has allowed us to take some amazing trips, but we are both looking forward to it being done.  We’ll concentrate on pictures from the great trips and our beautiful wedding.

So… to sum up the post… my 20s were a long journey that got me where I wanted to be.  I’ve got lots of reasons to look forward to the next decade more.