30 Days til 30: a decade in numbers
SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 - I’ve officially got less than one month of my twenties left, or in other words, [less than] 30 days til I’m 30 years old. With that, and my experience this year overall, has come a lot of reflecting on the past decade, and pondering what the next one might look like, too. I have a feeling that I know what I want life to look like when I wake up in ten years. I know the “big rocks” for myself, and trust that the other details will work themselves out. Someone asked me what I want my life to look like in five years, and that feels incredibly more fuzzy, though I guess have some ideas in my mind. In terms of what’s next after France, I honestly don’t know. I feel about as clear on that as I did the day I got here.
College basketball felt mostly like this 💛💙
As far as what’s behind me, it’s been an amazing, whirlwind, and heart-wrenching decade. It’s been a decade of forming the most amazing friendships. Of falling in love with a few really kind men, who didn’t work out for the long-run. Of seeing the world, and exploring it through food and work cultures and long, late-night walks. There was also Covid, and the bus, and shaving my head, and moving cross-country, and deep falling-outs with family members, and finding family among friends in cities far and wide. I lost trust in the Church, but not in my faith, and I’ve wrestled deeply with what that means, and with other expressions of Christianity and why I believe in what I do. I’ve found solace in learning that no matter how far I’ve felt from a formal “Church,” I have always had a sense of who I believe God is and what that means for me in my life.
I’m on a bit of a ramble, but I don’t know how to succinctly summarize the thoughts and feelings that are circulating right now. Sometimes, succinct doesn’t do it and it’s best to walk yourself, one rambling word at a time, through the sensation, and that’s the only way to capture it.
You can’t “calculate” how you’ve lived life (though I seem to be trying right now). You can’t know whether you spent the right amount of time studying versus going to the beach, or traveling versus establishing roots. My mind lately has been lining out the stats for my 20’s (maybe that’s the engineer in me, or maybe it’s the basketball player). This might make a very boring read, but it’s very cathartic to think about and to write about. So without further ado, these are the Decade Stats of my twenties:
I’ve been on 34 international trips, to 23 countries. From the windows of my bus, I saw around 20 US states, and travelled to about 30 in total (some were by plane). I have earned two engineering degrees and one culinary diploma. I’ve fallen in love 4 times, each time was different and probably more rich than the last. I finished my 16 year basketball career. I lived in the same apartment for the first half of the decade, and then have averaged at least one move per year since then. I got my first dog, and the 6 and a half years I’ve had with her so far have been perhaps the greatest blessing of my entire twenties.
I’ve tried mountain biking in Austria, scuba diving in Florida, snowboarding in Washington, surfing in Hawaii and Costa Rica. I’ve taken pasta classes in Italy, baking classes in Seattle, and bread classes in Paris. I’ve eaten Karaage in an alley at midnight in Japan, and ice cream on a terrace in Dubai, and warm baguettes in Paris, and I drank blisteringly hot chai in India.
I’ve worked abroad in five countries, studied abroad in two. I’ve had two corporate jobs, two food-related jobs. I’ve started two blogs and two Instagram accounts, and based on my best estimates, I’ve been to around 300 coffee shops.
I’m not sure how you analyze numbers on relationships, which are really the most important piece of my reflections. I became an aunt in my twenties to one beautiful niece, and I gained a one new sister-in-law. I had the honor of being in three weddings, supporting three amazing couples. I’ve travelled with friends to many corners of the US and the world, sometimes leaving as coworkers and returning as friends, sometimes leaving as friends and returning as family. I’ve lost friendships too, sometimes to distance, sometimes to depressive fogs, and sometimes to fallouts.
I’ve been married zero times, and I’ve had zero kids. I’m okay with that, though maybe if you’d told me that when I was 20, I’d be rather surprised by it. I’ve had two therapists who have helped change my life (I’m not going to count all the trial therapists it took to find those two!).
In 2025 I baked 126 loaves of bread based on a New Year’s resolution with a dear friend, which led me to a 2026 where I’ve baked several hundred and committed to the craft for the year.
I’m not sure how else you can summarize a decade of your own life. First, it surely must take more than one little blog post. And second, I think it’s much more qualitative than quantitative, but the numbers are easier to look at from the outset. I think over the course of the next month, I’ll stumble across other “numbers” or things that feel relevant to the way I’ve explored life during my twenties. Maybe the number of times I’ve read Harry Potter, or watched Pride and Prejudice, though I don’t think those could even be counted.
I guess I do know this; if I knew when I was 20 that I would stay in Florida for six years, I’d be shocked at my “lack of discipline.” But I’m so glad it worked out that way - that sixth year brought me some of the greatest friendships of my life. (Note to 24 year-old Jesi: only taking 6 years to get two engineering degrees is actually pretty good. Chilllll, girl.) If you told me when I was 20 that I would actually live in Seattle, and work on sustainable technologies in aviation, I’d probably squeal in joy that my dream job would come true (and there was so much that I loved about it!). If you told me that I then left that life to live in France and bake bread, I’d probably laugh at the good joke you surely must be telling. If you told me I wouldn’t end up with my then-boyfriend (thank goodness, that was a bad situation), and also not the one after, or the situationship after that, I’d probably start to wonder why the heck I spent my twenties dating men who weren’t sure how they felt about me. Good for 20 year-old-me asking that question - I plan not to have to ask it again when I’m forty! If you told me that I would live in a van, and have my own dog, I would surely not believe you, as at 20 I had made up my mind that I would never ever even have a dog. Oh, how God laughs at me. Shaving my head, and growing my hair back out, and traveling alone, and traveling with loved ones. Trauma therapy and big fights and meeting the greyest, darkest, angriest, and unhappiest versions of myself were all stories yet to unfold. I also met the strongest, boldest, most confident, and loving parts of myself. I learned how to really let myself fall in love. I learned how to speak my mind and stand up for myself and the people around me. If anyone could have sat me down and somehow painted all of that, I’m not sure what I would’ve done.
But that’s life, isn’t it? The good comes with the bad; ice cream is sweetest on a hot day, somehow. We don’t have a window into the future (thank goodness, really), and so now I look ahead. There is an exciting, terrifying, massive abyss just in front of me. For now, I must practice patience and let what’s to come reveal itself as it’s meant to. Maybe take some time to grieve things that I’ve been hiding from, and celebrate what’s been amazing. It’s an incredible blessing, really, to even have the capacity to do both. To have loved or dreamed so deeply that I now have reasons to grieve. And to have lived so fully and whole-heartedly, as best as I could, that there’s so much to look back on and celebrate.
Thank you to all of you who have been a part of the last decade (and have made it this far through my rambling thoughts today). I think I meet God most often in two places; in nature (specifically in water), and in the people that have been placed in my life. So whoever you are, thank you for taking part in shaping who I have become as I embrace my thirties. For the shared meals, texts, or reels. The adventures, laughs, and tears I’ve shared with the people I love are by far the most important pieces of the mosaic of my life.
With all our love to you,
Jesi & Anya
