Life’s Decades - The Fourth 10 Years

Today I am focused on the fourth decade of life. For me - it was mostly in the 1980s and included moving half way across the country from my family for careers (mine and my husband’s) and having a child.

Moving away was wrenching but I was kept so busy - both by work and long commutes - that I didn’t have time to worry about it. Many in the family came for visits. There was a lot to see and our guest room was comfortable. The immediate family was computer savvy enough that we started exchanging email rather than snail mail before the decade was out. Telephone calls were still expensive.

I finally had time to read for pleasure and set a goal to read a book a week (and quickly discovered discount books stores and used book sales at the local library). Now most of my reading is ‘free’ and electronic either through internet resources or the public library. The majority of physical books I read are via paperbackswap…and then I donate the books to the used book sale.

The ten years of education (and ten years of work experience) set the stage for a very productive fourth decade. It included the most technical years of my career and then the step into management of people and projects. The semantic changed from management to leadership sometime during the decade but the core of the job didn’t. The career never was a “9 to 5, leave work at work” endeavor but the increasing responsibility and advances in technology meant that work was not as tied to a location. It happened at home too. The ‘always on call’ happened to me earlier because I was in a technical field. Now the technology is so pervasive that just about every professional feels the integration (sometimes forced) of all parts of life. I remember being incredibly grateful to my husband for buying  a laser printer for me rather than a bouquet of flowers as he had been doing during a particularly rough project. As a woman in a technical, very competitive field - I benefited from supportive family relationships.

When I had my daughter midway through my fourth decade, I took a year off before I returned to work full time and though that would slow down my career trajectory. It didn’t as much as I thought it would since I was promoted about 6 months after returning to work.

Looking back - having the same day care person for 3 years and then Montessori school for my daughter was better and less traumatic than many of my peers. It helped that my daughter was a happy child. We shorten her day away from us by using flex hours (they were new at the time); my husband would flex a bit later in the day to take her in the morning and I would flex earlier to pick her up in the afternoon. We managed to combine some business trips (either mine or my husband’s) with vacations. My daughter actually was puzzled that other children in her Montessori school did not go to Colorado like she did!

One serendipity event that occurred near the end of my fourth decade was on my daughter’s fourth birthday. I came home early to get ready and discovered a water pipe had broken! We got it turned off before too much damage occurred but the muddy path in the front yard that resulted from the repair was so much fun that my daughter often says it was her most memorable birthday ever.

Life’s Decades - The Third 10 Years

Today I am focused on the third decade of life - typically the decade to finish a college degree and get started on a career. For me - it was mostly in the 1970s.

In my case it was done concurrently. I worked full time and went to school part time while my husband continued in school full time. It took me most of the decade to get an undergraduate degree in Biology and then a masters in Mathematics. I don’t remember reading for pleasure or watching very much television; there wasn’t any extra time. For a few years, my husband and I would meet for dinner so that we’d see each other during the week before late night!

The big pivot point in the decade was deciding to not continue in Biology for graduate school but to switch to Mathematics (Computer Science) which was the field I was working in for the whole decade. My employer paid most of the cost of the masters. Within a few months of my decision make a career in the computer field, we bought our first house.

We were on quite a budget the whole time. I made almost all my clothes and a good portion of my husband’s shirts; in those days it was a good way to save money. The flood of discount clothes from third world countries had not started yet. Sewing was no longer a money-saving endeavor by the next decade and is not a strategy to economize now.

Most of our vacations were between semesters or long weekends. We went camping in national (Mesa Verde, Rocky Mountain, and Grand Canyon) and state parks - cooking our own food over campfires. When we first started we simply took blankets and pillows and slept in the car! Sometime we had to share the space with a telescope. Foods were simple (hot dogs, cans of pork’n’beans, cookies) but later we got fancier (steak, corn on the cob, baked apples)….and all along there were s’mores. Later in the decade we acquired a tent, better sleeping bags, a Coleman stove and lantern. And we enjoyed canoeing on the Brazos and Guadalupe Rivers. Camping is still a viable way to vacation frugally and I’m sure there are people in the third decade of life that enjoy it still - but I realize that it has not kept up with population growth. Why is that?

Both of my grandfathers died while I was in my 20s while the grandmothers continued on. The grandfathers had both lived into their mid-70s. Demographic statistics tell us that people are living longer now but many people have their children later like I did. My daughter is in her 20s now and still has one grandfather (who is in his mid-80s); her husband only has one grandmother left and she is 90. What a boon of modernity in the developed world to have a high probability of grandparents living to see grandchildren reach to adulthood!

When I sum up my 3rd decade I think: 10 years for me to get a masters and, concurrently, start my career…and my husband to get a PhD.