A few months before the new year, I started jokingly referring to this new decade as the Roaring 20s. “It’s going to be the roaring 20s!” I’d tell my friends, conjuring up images of flapper girls and Gatsby-esque parties complete with Leonardo DiCaprio cheers-ing us in a perfect tuxedo. Even though glitter magically falling all around us as we dance through the night sounds amazing, that’s not what I was talking about. Putting the sequins and feather headbands aside, I’ve been calling this new decade the Roaring 20s because I have a quiet hope and slight suspicion that this decade is really going to matter.
And okay, yes, they ALL matter. Every single day of your life is a gift and opportunity to go and do, be and become … but this feels like a unique moment of readiness. I want to write a book in these Roaring 20s. I want to stand on pieces of the earth I’ve never been to in these Roaring 20s. I want to be wrapped up by and somehow at the same time completely surprised by the love of God in these Roaring 20s. All in all, I want to take some serious ground in these Roaring 20s.
The past 10 years have been a lot of becoming, of experiencing and learning. From 2010 to 2019 I graduated from college, moved away from life as I’d always known it and it blew my mind, scared me to no end and made me more of who I am. I moved to a new continent, not knowing a single person who lived there. I made Paris home for a year and a half, living a dream with every corner I turned. I learned what it’s like to be the only Christian in the room, the only person representing the southern-half of the United States. Verses like “the joy of the Lord is my strength” and “because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed” became real life to me and my friendship with Jesus expanded to a place I didn’t know existed. As much as it broke my heart to leave Paris, I came home because if felt like the right thing to do, and life bloomed all around me — even as I was flailing about trying to find a job and adulthood. I learned that a job is not the answer to my identity. I learned that no job is a small job. I learned that to build new friendships, you often have to make the first move and reach out to people. I lived the advice of my parents to “make them tell you no” over and over again as I asked for writing opportunities and jobs beyond my reach. Then I met some of the best friends I’ve ever had, like lifer-category friends. I witnessed God provide over and over again in big and small ways — school acceptance, the perfect apartments, the absolute right friends, literal hearts littering my path. I became an aunt and my heart expanded over and over and over again. I lived through what I truly can imagine being the most difficult loss of my life. I begin to think of my heart breaking like that again, my faith being turned inside out like that again. And then there was the grief management: covering up, layer by layer, tv show by tv show, pound by pound, and miraculously, then the unnumbing. The quiet, slow, layer by layer, piece by piece unnumbing of my head, my heart, my entire being. It was the rebuilding after the dismantling and it is a story I hope I continue to live and tell for the rest of my life. I learned that even in the dark, the goodness of God is thick. I ended the 2010s on the other side of that very difficult grief, set back on my feet to run.
And so, here I am.
It’s the roaring 20s and I’m back on my feet in my very own lane of life. And I’m not saying this is the decade when my life begins — not in the least. I’ve already started understanding, using and growing my gifts. I’ve already ventured out into the wide world. I’ve already learned some of who I am and what I want my life to be like. It’s just that I now find myself, at the beginning of the 2020s, in a lane and life all my own and unfurling like a carpet in front of me are the questions, “What will I do now?” and “Will I make the most of this?”
The Roaring 20s are not a glitzy party to me (although I would certainly love to go to some of those). Instead, it is a growing roar inside me, a volume turning up, a sense of self, a readiness to live a life that’s growing wider and louder. It’s a hope and proclamation to come into my own and take some serious ground. It’s a propeller turning on for takeoff.
What will this stretch of the road be like? What will I encounter? Who will I meet? What will happen? God only knows, but I want to stand at the finish line of 2029 awed and amazed. I hope I roar right to that edge, fully awake and alive to the world and the love of God that shapes and surrounds me.
And so my prayer for these self-declared Roaring 20s is that I make much of Jesus and the gift of life. I hope by the end I am surprised in ways I can’t begin to imagine right now. I hope I am the most Caitlin I’ve ever been — head tilted to the sky, arms open, gusto-filled, belly-laugh shaking, carefully listening and watching all the world around me, absolutely roaring with life.
