How was 27?#

I just turned 28, so lets look back and reflect on 27 - or as my grandpa would have framed it, my 28th year of life (since when you turn 1, you have experienced one year. So I am actually done with my 28th year of being alive. Confusing, I know, but true).

I feel like 27 was a year of stability and personal growth. I think 28 year old Nick is a lot more confident personally and professionally than 26 year old Nick was, and is leaps and bounds ahead of 24 year old Nick. My career has fast forwarded exponentially over the last 3 years, and although there is certainly a level of imposter syndrome, I have consistently advanced and that has improved my confidence greatly. I am also very happy with where I am interpersonally in my life. I have the best group of friends that I have ever had, an amazing supportive partner, and family who has always had my back.

27 was the first full year I spent in my own home, which has been both rewarding and challenging. I love the house, and grow more happy with it and more attached to it the more effort that I pour into it, as it becomes more and more how I want it to be. Sure, there are times where something goes wrong or where the chores that need to be done pile up and there is no one else to do them for you, but I would still take it any day over renting, and am grateful for the fact that I have the option.

Who do I want to be by 29?#

I want the next year to be one where I focus on sharpening the skills that I have been cultivating, and where I take the steps I need to accomplish my goals. I want to pour more of myself into both my personal life and professional life, and do what I can to take a more active role in both. It is easy to fall into complacency in our day to day lives, and to have the weeks slip by without doing much of note. I think that in the past few years I have made a lot of progress on this front, but I want to make sure that I keep moving forward.

By 29, I want to be who I am today, but more even more competent, capable, and motivated.

How did I celebrate my birthday?#

For my birthday, my girlfriend Kim got me tickets for a Twenty One Pilots concert in Brooklyn. She is from Long Island, so we also took the opportunity to visit with her family, who I have gotten pretty close to. It was an interesting trip, since I haven’t been to NYC since I was a kid, and I didn’t see much when I was there.

The Trip there and Back#

We decided to take my Tacoma to Kim’s parents. Since it is still new and I really didn’t want to get in a fender bender I wasn’t willing to take it to the city proper. So, we took the Bridgeport, CT to Port Jefferson Ferry. I liked this route a lot better than how we went the time before this, where we took the George Washington bridge through the city, to Long Island. The drive this way mainly went through rural Massachusetts, which was more scenic than I expected it to be. The only stressful part about the ferry was loading and unloading the truck onto the boat since it is very tight inside, but everything went well.

Kim’s parents dropped us off at a train stop for the Long Island Railroad (LIRR). It was about an hour train ride to Penn Station in Manhattan. We took a quick break before transferring to the subway, and walked around the city for a few minutes and got some lunch. Some notes on this - its a wild feeling being surrounded by such tall buildings and such large moving crowds when you work from home in rural upstate New York. I did live in Buffalo for quite a few years, but still big cities are like a different universe. You can barely see the sky due to the giant pillars of concrete and glass all around you.

We then took the 3 line to the Barclay Center where the show was. This was my first time on NYC’s subway, and overall everything went well. I was a bit surprised that the trains and stations were so outdated though. The trains look like they haven’t been updated in 30+ years. There are no displays in the cars to let you know which station you are at or are approaching, and the sound system is so poor you can’t hear the announcements at all. So the only way to know what stop you are at is to look at the signs at the station when you get there, and count the stops til you get where you need to be. The other strange thing was how hot the stations were, with no ventilation or AC to be seen.

The Show#

Who goes to a Twenty One Pilots concert in 2024?

• Random guy on the subway

Me, I am the one who sees Twenty One Pilots in 2024. Me and like 10,000 girls who dragged their SO’s to the show. Thats okay, I don’t mind. Twenty One Pilots has always had a special place in my heart. I started listening around the release of Vessel. On our commute to the local community college me and my friend Cody would spend most of the drive singing along to all the songs. I could go years without listening to that album and still know every word to almost all the songs after how much we burned those lyrics into our heads that year.

Since then I have been “late” to most of the albums, but I always get around to listening to them and they tend to really resonate with me. A lot of their songs have a basis in anxiety and self doubt which are always things that I have struggled with, and their music has always felt so relatable.

The show itself was amazing. Tyler and Josh are both great performers, and once the show started the energy never faded away, even for a moment. They also played pretty much every song I would have asked them to play, ranging from their first self titled album all the way to their newest album. I liked that they skipped around their entire discography and it felt completely natural.

If you are a fan and have never seen them in person, I can’t recommend it enough.