Duly Noted: The First 25 & Farewell

By Jarrett in : Duly Noted, Jarrett Hill // Apr 25 2010

This week I turned 25. A whole quarter of a century. I was even called a “cougar,” after looking at someone 22. A COUGAR!!?? A small piece of me died while the rest of me cracked up hysterically at the idea. I mean, I’m not a woman, and I’m ONLY TWENTY-FIVE!!

But seriously though, I’ve thought a lot about what “25″ means, if it means jack, what I should be doing differently, if there’s something I should change, and what to do with all that.

If you’ve read my stuff for any amount of time, you know that I hate to over-quote Oprah, (LOL, yeah right, and Oprah hates carbs) but I was just hearing something again that she’s been saying for years.

As we get older, we become “more of ourselves.”

Sometimes as either a human, a guy, a black person, a mo (or whatever you want to put here), it’s not always easy to effectively process what someone else is trying to express. I always say that we all only have power over what we present, not the way it’s perceived. I’m sure, as the sender of the message, Oprah clearly understands what it means to “become more of one’s self.” As a receiver of the information, I think it’s taken me up until the last year or so to really get a firm grasp on what it means to become more of… me.

For nearly the last 5 years I’ve lived here in Atlanta and it has been the single greatest and most transformative decision I’ve ever made (almost on a whim). My stepmother came to Atlanta for business several years back and came back really impressed, excited, and seemingly inspired by the city. She probably doesn’t even remember it, but she talked about it for days, and I think somewhere in the back of my mind she’d put down the foundation about what Atlanta would be a big part of my future.

I came here sight unseen – as a boy, just 19 years old, starting to find himself, wanting to break out of the bonds of childhood and start flexing my adult muscles. I met people who’ve had major impacts on my life, I’ve had some of the most positive experiences (and negative ones, even) that have helped shape my perspective on the world, helped mold my understanding of myself, helped to make me the person I am now, and probably who I’ll be tomorrow morning.

As I look back at the time Atlanta and I shared, the best have been some of my life’s very best. The hardest rank in some of toughest life has thrown at me. As I embark on the next phase of my life, out of Atlanta, my new comfort zone, I walk out of the past that was for so long my unforeseen future, and so often my present, grateful for all I’ve experienced, and potentially even more grateful for all I never did.

Finally, as Star Jones said on her last day as a co-host on the View, “I’m not sure what the future holds, but I’m absolutely sure who holds the future.”

Duly Noted.

j.

PS: Where I’m going and what I’ll be doing…  comes tomorrow.