The View from 20

I hit the two-decade mark this past week. For the next ten years, I get to write a "2" in front of my age instead of a "1". Decade birthdays have always been the ones we mark with the biggest celebration in my family; for my tenth birthday, we had a massive ancient-Egyptian-themed blowout party, to which we invited about 20 people and had almost the entire neighborhood show up. I decided not to try to outdo that birthday this year, and had a small movie night with lots of food and friends-- and movies exclusively from the year 1989. They made quite a few good movies that year, including:

• Batman, with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson
• Dead Poets Society, with Robin Williams
• Say Anything, with John Cusack and Ione Skye
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, with Harrison Ford and Sean Connery
• When Harry Met Sally, with Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan
• Driving Miss Daisy, with Morgan Freeman

It seemed to me strikingly fitting to have a movie night for my 20th birthday, but that didn't become apparent until the day of the party. That day-- my birthday-- one of my favorite professors passed away from Stage IV kidney cancer. This professor had taught me in a film class I took called "American Society on Stage and Screen," so it was his memory that I kept in my heart during the movie-watching. Incidentally, as that was in my head and my birthday was all around me, my friend Kaitlyn came to celebrate with me, along with her five-month-old son. All of a sudden, I felt surrounded-- indeed, a bit overwhelmed-- by the circle of life in its entirety...and very appreciative of what I was able to have around me that day. Because really, what more could a 20-year-old need on her birthday but family, friends, food, and films?