Well. The time is almost here. The sun is about to set on my 20’s and the dawn of a brand new decade will rise and shed light on my new old man-edness – wrinkles, flab, and toilet bowl shaped baldness.
To be honest, I don’t really mind all that much that I’m about to turn 30. I mean sure, I’m starting to feel the effects of a more advanced age; including, but not limited to: every part of body hurting after physical exercise (even the parts I don’t use), staying in and watching Orange is the New Black often sounds better than partying on the weekend, finding myself saying “those damn kids” far too often, etc.
But it’s whatever.
To celebrate my eclipsing three decades on this earth, I figured I’d give a brief recap of the highlights from each decade.
Decade #1: Mark Curtis comes to life
I was born on July 28, 1986 in Tulsa, Oklahoma damn near exactly nine months after the Royals won their first World Series. I have no doubt that the Royals victory is what inspired my parents to “celebrate” that night. That’s also probably why they came close to naming me “Bret” after Bret Saberhagen. But my brother, Matt, decided that a super lame ass name like “Mark” was more fitting. Thanks for naming me after an action performed by a writing utensil.
Fast forward ten months, and I was back in the hospital. But this time, instead of coming into this world, I was almost on my way out. Unfortunately, I fell very ill with spinal meningitis, and that was almost all she wrote for lil’ Mark if it weren’t for my mom acting quickly and putting an incompetent doctor in his place. Had she not, I could have suffered complete deafness, brain damage, or, as mentioned, death. Fortunately, she came to my rescue, and now I’m only half deaf and slightly brain damaged.
There was also some really neat and non-life-threatening stuff that happened in this decade. I experienced some of the finest schoolin’ a kid could get going to the Independent Elementary School. I made some great friends and experienced all the fun a kid should have. I was a part of a generation that still played outside, used our imaginations, and could get away with teasing fat kids. And I most certainly feel comfortable saying that because I was a fat kid. It built character.
I began my career as a person who played sports (I would use the word “athlete,” but that would be disrespectful to the term). I played soccer, basketball, roller hockey, and – my favorite – baseball.
I was exposed to some pretty sweet pop culture as well. I enjoyed movies such as Independence Day and Titanic, listened to awesome tunes like Spice Girls, and witnessed the phenomena of Beavis and Butthead.
It was a really good decade.
Decade #2: More things happen and I live to see 20
When I turned 10, my life took a drastic turn. Not really. In fact, nothing really notable happened until I turned 12. And really that was only interesting because I started middle school and got braces. It wasn’t all too bad being in middle school. I had roller hockey as an elective class, nobody beat me up, and I even went on my first date with a girl that was significantly taller than me.
Like everyone, lots of development happened during my second decade of life. I went through puberty, grew to my full and mildly frustrating height of 5’ 11” and ¾” (couldn’t quite hit 6 feet), and even got into the fun world of lifting weights. So, even though my body generally looked like a bunch of pale clay mashed together, I at least had a little muscle definition to build my self esteem.
I had a pretty righteous group of friends during this decade – Luke, Behnam, Kyle, Cameron, Ronnie, Bober, and more. We were all pretty close from middle school on through high school. We got into plenty of shenanigans and were only nearly arrested one time. Not too shabby!
And when I wasn’t running from the scene of mischief, I was running the base paths or attempting to block would be tacklers in my two most beloved sports, baseball and football. I had an amazing opportunity to get a lot of playing time at Independent, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything – not even all the characters in Pokemon Go. One of the best parts of my athletic career was when I tricked people into electing me to the All State team as a pitcher when I was a Junior.
I even dabbled a bit in theater in high school when I wrote, directed, and starred in my own one act play – a spoof of the movie The Matrix. This was certainly an interesting experience in which I somehow managed to get away with convincing my drama teacher play the part of a fortune telling prostitute named the Whoreacle. I’d like to see a kid get away with that today.
Capping off my second decade, I headed to college when I was 19 years old. Fresh off a knee surgery, I had the good fortune of attending the university with the only damn hill in the entire state (and it was a big hill). I guess the doctor wanted to have some fun with me and decided to shave my entire left leg prior to the operation. Really, nothing says “babe magnet” quite like one bald leg in the middle of shorts-wearing weather during your first month of college.
Again, a pretty sweet and memorable decade.
Decade #3:
My third decade on this planet threw the most variety my way.
There are too many interesting highlights from college and grad school to put into one blog post, but to recap some biggies: I had my first beer when I turned 21 (I know right), my roommate, Brian, kicked me out of our room multiple times a week thanks to his frequent female visitors, KU was actually good at football, I was a 2-time award winning stage performer, I earned the moniker “Tequila Mark,” I traveled to China and started a dance party (among other things), I went to sleep in my friend’s SUV while camping and he drove home unbeknownst of my presence (woke up very surprised the next morning), I crashed a wedding, I streaked in Allen Fieldhouse, etc. Oh, and I graduated too.
After KU had had enough of me, I migrated south to Dallas to begin my career in advertising. Boy was I scared/excited to move down here. I’d never lived anywhere other than Kansas since I was a wee lad, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. But when a big career opportunity came a knockin’, I went Winnie the Pooh (balls out) in answering the door. I’ve been amazingly fortunate in my work opportunities. I’ve worked on some fun accounts with some kickass coworkers, and, though it took awhile to get to this point, I get to write words for a living! Talk about awesome.
Dallas hasn’t been too bad to me…regardless of what Dallas may have to say about me. A few highlights: I spent too much time in Uptown; I met a whole mess of interesting people (including Nikki Sixx); I contracted West Nile; frequented Las Vegas with my bros Andrew, Maness, Marc, and Doug; threw some fun parties; resurrected my baseball career; and VERY importantly, I met my amazing girlfriend, Ashley.
Pretty sweet third decade.
The aforementioned events are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg of awesome experiences for ol’ Mark. And I most certainly look forward to adding to that tip over the next 30 years. Let’s just hope I survive my birthday trip to New Orleans and live to see that coveted fourth decade. I’ll let you know how it goes.