20

It would be unfair to begin this decade with anything other than a note of gratitude. I am constantly astounded and thankful for the people I have around me, the moments I get to live, and the opportunities offered to me.

Birthdays have always scared me. At midnight on December 12th every year, I have the same memory.

I'm by a pool, looking out over it in fear. It's early summer, sweltering, and I am at one of my first swimming lessons. Suddenly, my legs are swept from under me as laughter erupts into my ears. The intense blue of the pool gets larger and larger by the millisecond as my brother, Matt, prepares to throw me in.

Birthdays fill me with the anxiety that I felt flying through the air and into the water. It's a feeling that the race is beginning, and I better kick and push like hell or I will drown. Time is no kind judge.

So I always look back to soften the blow of aging older in a youthful world. And boy, what a 20 years it has been.

Growing up, I never had major dreams or aspirations. I don't remember daydreaming of sitting in the Oval or launching from Cape Canerval, but I do remember my crippling lack of confidence. I remember pacing the bathroom at my grandmother's home, begging my mom over the phone to not make me go to 6th grade field day. I had no friends, and the anxiety, embarrassment, and fear of spending an entire day outside alone while everyone else played sports and had fun terrified me. I say that to show that big dreams can sometimes be a luxury. It's hard to dream of being the president when you don't have the courage for field day.

So I have taken it little by little, seizing the opportunities and moments I could grab. And it has been adventure. The same Luke that cried that day in the bathroom has ventured into Seattle alone and had an avocado smoothie with near strangers before scaling the Space Needle, sang K-Pop at 2 a.m. in a Boston bar while spending a summer in the city, flew on a plane for the first time, got accepted to one of the top colleges in the world, shielded behind a column in a parking garage while 100 MPH hurricane winds ripped by, and documented protests in MS of a size not seen since Freedom Summer. Somewhere along the way, I found my courage.

And it's with that courage that I enter my 20's with some peace...peace that I'm making decisions and heading down a path I can be proud of.

I don't really have a grand design for the next decade of my life, and I have accepted the beauty in that (after much internal wrangling). When nothing is for sure, anything can happen...so here is to chasing a life of uncertainty and excitement, holding my breath for absolutely anything to happen.