Turning the Big 30 - Top 10 Defining Moments of My 20s
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| Turning 30 in 2014...Wilson Bethel, Katy Perry & Me |
The official 30th birthday countdown has begun. It seems as though the older I get the more time flies by so in no time at all the big 3-0 will have snuck up on me! I can admit that I have always viewed age as just a number and never given to much thought to the "fear" of turning 30. However, I did want to reflect back on the last decade of my life and think of the Top 10 Defining Moments of My 20s and write about how they impacted me and brought me to the current place I am in my life.
I have been plotting these Top 10 Moments for about two months now. The idea came to me in August while text messaging with one of my very dear friends. I'm sure as I go through pictures both in print and digitally I will come up with other moments that made an impact, but these are the ones that stuck out most for me. I turn 30 in June 2014, so I'll be reliving a moment a month for the next ten months leading up on the big event.
And so begins...in no particular order...the Top 10 Defining Moments of My 20s...
When I began to look over the list of the top moments of my 20s this moment titled, "Leaving Homeland" is one that clearly stands out. I think the reason that it stands out the most is because it set me on a path that I feel as though seven years is still currently being traveled.
To give some backstory, I started working at Homeland on December 26, 2001 when I was a Junior in High School. It was my second job in a grocery store and one of the Assistant Managers happened to someone that my Grandmother had worked with at the same company, formerly known as Safeway. Little did I know what Homeland would offer me in terms of a real job...friendships...life lessons and the power of moving on. The fact is Henryetta Homeland on Trudgeon had this unique hold on me that is hard to explain...like a bad relationship I tried to leave multiple times over, but there was just something that pulled me back to it over and over and over again. The first time that I said farewell was ironically in July 2002 when I first moved to Stillwater for school. I ended up returning two months later in September 2002, in my old job no less (Thanks Devin!) and I stayed until April 2004 when I left it for another store in Tulsa. Homeland in Tulsa at 91st and Memorial holds some special memories. I was able to gain more responsibilities in the workplace, build more friendships and it was the first time that I truly felt as though I was living on my own. But all the memories tied to Homeland weren't as pleasant as most. The memories of receiving a life changing phone call (which I'll discuss later in this series) still haunts me to this day. And it was because of that phone call and the aftermath that followed that ended up back in the comfort environment of Homeland in Henryetta.
I returned to the Friendly Henryetta Homeland in August 2005 and stayed until July 2006. By the time that I had left everything had begun to or already changed. There was a new manager in charge, the friends I had made during my previously time there had moved on and it was time for a well deserved change in my life.
Homeland taught me the value of hard work, because I worked hard when I was there. I earned every penny I ever made. There were smiles, laughter, tears, temper tantrums, beer and friends...some of you who maybe reading this will recall your own memories and perhaps they are even the same as mine. To this day I tell the story of our Assistant Manager Sonya Davis talking about the "Clucking" Cadbury Bunny or of Devin yelling for me to pick-up the telephone over the intercom!
Homeland truly for better or for worse set the groundwork for my training. Just as soap opera starlets who leave the world of daytime to make it big in films recall their time on the soaps as a training ground...I too do the same for Homeland. When I left in July 2006 at the age of 22 I had plans of moving to another store, but those plans didn't quite pan out and I moved to Stillwater. Little did I know that was going to be one of the smartest things I could have done in my life because of where it would lead me less than two years later. Looking back now I couldn't have known what was to come when I left that late July day in 2006...but knowing what I know now I'm sure as hell glad I did leave.
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| Homeland in Henryetta |
To give some backstory, I started working at Homeland on December 26, 2001 when I was a Junior in High School. It was my second job in a grocery store and one of the Assistant Managers happened to someone that my Grandmother had worked with at the same company, formerly known as Safeway. Little did I know what Homeland would offer me in terms of a real job...friendships...life lessons and the power of moving on. The fact is Henryetta Homeland on Trudgeon had this unique hold on me that is hard to explain...like a bad relationship I tried to leave multiple times over, but there was just something that pulled me back to it over and over and over again. The first time that I said farewell was ironically in July 2002 when I first moved to Stillwater for school. I ended up returning two months later in September 2002, in my old job no less (Thanks Devin!) and I stayed until April 2004 when I left it for another store in Tulsa. Homeland in Tulsa at 91st and Memorial holds some special memories. I was able to gain more responsibilities in the workplace, build more friendships and it was the first time that I truly felt as though I was living on my own. But all the memories tied to Homeland weren't as pleasant as most. The memories of receiving a life changing phone call (which I'll discuss later in this series) still haunts me to this day. And it was because of that phone call and the aftermath that followed that ended up back in the comfort environment of Homeland in Henryetta.
I returned to the Friendly Henryetta Homeland in August 2005 and stayed until July 2006. By the time that I had left everything had begun to or already changed. There was a new manager in charge, the friends I had made during my previously time there had moved on and it was time for a well deserved change in my life.
Homeland taught me the value of hard work, because I worked hard when I was there. I earned every penny I ever made. There were smiles, laughter, tears, temper tantrums, beer and friends...some of you who maybe reading this will recall your own memories and perhaps they are even the same as mine. To this day I tell the story of our Assistant Manager Sonya Davis talking about the "Clucking" Cadbury Bunny or of Devin yelling for me to pick-up the telephone over the intercom!
Homeland truly for better or for worse set the groundwork for my training. Just as soap opera starlets who leave the world of daytime to make it big in films recall their time on the soaps as a training ground...I too do the same for Homeland. When I left in July 2006 at the age of 22 I had plans of moving to another store, but those plans didn't quite pan out and I moved to Stillwater. Little did I know that was going to be one of the smartest things I could have done in my life because of where it would lead me less than two years later. Looking back now I couldn't have known what was to come when I left that late July day in 2006...but knowing what I know now I'm sure as hell glad I did leave.
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