To Sweet Sixteen and The Next Fifteen

I love dinner’s that linger.

The meal is finished, yet the dishes sit still and you stay at the table deep in conversation.  This is why I love gathering around the table so much.  It’s in that conversation where memories are made.

Growing up, we ate as a family at the table almost every night.  It was a priority in my family and we enjoyed it.  Not every dinner would linger- there was homework to get done and practice to get to, but the one’s that did have stuck with me all these years.

My dad, an ex-marketer and now writer, speaker and MBA coach, was (and still is) a fan of a post dinner lecture and, for the most part, they all centered back to one of his self-created theories.

My favorite of these the theories, then and especially now, is the theory of The Five Fifteens.

Dad explained to us that a lifetime is broken down into five fifteen year periods.

In your First Fifteen, from birth to age fifteen, your job is to be a kid.  To be kind, to be a friend and learn how to learn.

In the Second Fifteen, fifteen to thirty, you are faced with choices, responsibility, freedom and risks.  You try new things and learn who you are, what you should be doing, and who you should love.

Throughout the Third Fifteen, thirty to forty five, you dive into your passions and purpose.  You raise children who are in the First Fifteen teaching them right from wrong so they can be successful as a good friend, student, and person.

In the Fourth Fifteen, forty five to sixty, you guide Second Fifteen children into adulthood, continue to fight for your passions and place in the workforce.

Where in the Fifth and Final Fifteen, sixty to seventy five, you give back, travel, enjoy grand kids and anything beyond this is a gift.

Dad would bust out the Five Fifteens when we preteens would show signs of wanting to grow up too fast by going to parties or concerts that seemed more “Second Fifteen” appropriate.  It also appeared later in our teenage years and early twenties when we felt like we had all the time in the world to figure out careers, just to prove how fast life really is.

And, tonight as this century completes it’s first fifteen, I can’t help but reflect on all that has happened in the last fifteen years.  I also can’t help but realize how well my Second Fifteen matches up to the last fifteen years with the difference of only a few months.

For me, the last fifteen years, nearly my whole Second Fifteen, are scary true to my dad’s theory of what they should be.

As the century began, I had the first taste of freedom when traveling abroad for the first time (of the many times in my Second Fifteen) on my own, gaining experiences and making my world just a bit smaller.  Freedom had a new, more profound and adult meaning just a few months later when as a high school freshman I learned that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

There was freedom, responsibility, and choices in dating, learning who your friends really are and getting a driver’s licence.

There were bigger choices to be made such as where to go to college and what to study.

There was a first real love and a first real heartbreak as our choices were not the same.

In college, I tried on new and different things like friends, classes, boys and persona’s from “overachiever” to “party girl” to see what was really “me.”  Some were good.  Some were bad.  All helped me hone into what I wanted.  (For Example/ A persona somewhere in-between the “overachiever” and “party girl.”)

There were risks like turning down a perfectly fine, but safe, internship in my hometown to head west to California for a summer where I knew basically no one.

A choice- and a risk- to let myself date and fall in love with a boy from the campus bar when I was back for my senior year and I thought I wanted out of the Midwest so badly.  Instead of the City of Angels, I signed my first lease days before donning my cap and gown and made Indianapolis, infamously “Nap” Town, my home.

That boy, deep into his second fifteen as well, also focused on what he wanted too: To take over the family business.

In Small Town, USA.

Then, I made another choice and (big) risk, only to learn one of the most valuable lessons of my twenties: Home is a person, not a place.

Together, we grew and took on new responsibilities like a house, new careers, chickens, a garden, each other and our dreams. We celebrated with friends as they finished grad school, bought their own homes, accepted promotions, and married their loves.

Of course, the last fifteen years has not been without trips, wrong turns and struggles.

But, that is what the Second Fifteen is about.  And, armed with our First and Second Fifteen experiences, sense of self, the best group of friends and Love, we have found ourselves ready and knocking on the door of the Third Fifteen as the century starts a new fifteen too.

We will kick off our Third Fifteen in 2016 by starting to make our dreams and passions a reality.  Together we have plans for a farm.  Adam has drive to grow his business.  I have plans for the blog and a book or two.

What will make 2016 especially sweet is that we will also welcome a child in April. A child that we are eager to shape and guide to be a great friend and a kind, motivated kid.

Before we know it, the next fifteen will come.  Then, we will be just beginning to help to guide a kid into adulthood (With the help of The Five Fifteens over dinner, of course.) as that baby that we will be meeting this April will be just starting the special Fifteen that we are walking out of at midnight with smiles, great memories and excitement for what’s to come.