What's your favourite number?
Mine's 3. And 7.
Yes, I have two. But after tomorrow, I might change it.
When I was 12, my sixth grade teacher challenged us to predict our futures. I fully expected to be a crown prosecutor and have a blue convertible VW Beetle and a blond-haired, blue-eyed 6' 1" surfer husband—who, by the way, I would marry at 26.
It wasn't an arbitrary number. My 12-year-old brain figured that, four years past a four-year university degree, my inevitably successful and adventurous self would be ready to settle down. 26 seemed like the magic number: old enough to do anything, and yet young enough, too.
Even though I foresaw my future husband with surprising accuracy, life rarely follows one's childhood predictions. I met him when I was 19, and within a year he proposed. I'll be honest, I wasn't sure if I wanted to settle down so quickly. Twenty-Six, that estimable milestone, was still SIX years away. But, he was ideal, even if the timing wasn't. I took him off the market.
26 weeks, or about six months, into my first real job (salaried employee), I began noticing spots where the shine had begun to wear off. It takes a while at any company before you can distinguish between personal opinions and the truth. No organization is perfect, but my awareness was sharpened enough that I made note of concerns in my journal. I vowed to stick it out at least a year—another 26 weeks.
That job taught me a lot, and I'm grateful for its flaws, which led me to 3.5 years with a phenomenal team at Trinity Western University. It was during that time that I turned Twenty-Six.
I stood up (figuratively); I looked around. "26 is where it's at," I remember thinking. I was advancing my problem-solving and creative skills, working with people I liked, making friends I loved, and had a home, patio garden, and budding manuscript which gave me rest and restoration.
In The Year of Twenty-Six, I...
- managed a team of 6 while holding 2 titles (2 - 6, get it?)
- spent a weekend in La Connor on my first solo retreat, writing a record 7,500 words/day
- adventured a glorious 3 weeks in Italy, fulfilling a lifelong dream
- got rear-ended and upgraded my 21-year old clunker to a 2010 Matrix
- attended my first writer's conference, fuelling the start of my writing career
