When I was 27.....

[monster]

When I was 27....

I got my PhD -with a bump under my gown
I had my first baby
I still had a late 80s perm (in 1997) -my hair wasn't purple or short and spiky then (second child did that....). But it would have been if I'd've had the guts....
I wore all black and purple and lots of make-up when I went out (nowadays it's just black and if I wear make-up people comment -nicely, but it pisses me off because I'm a bitch that way -I'm sure you mean well when you say I look gorgeous and should wear make-up more often, but Ihear "you're butt-ugly without make-up" /tangent)
I worked in the university bookstore and hung in there way past i shoulda quit to get maternity pay
Beest got his current job -as a temp to start -days before I was due to give birth and almost turned it down because he was worried about not being there. I nearly killed him live on the phone to the recruiter.....

How about you?

[Aliantha]

That was 1998/99 for me. I'd just become a single mother and was working with my father starting up a business. I didn't have a perm, but my hair was multi coloured. I looked a bit like a tortis shell cat. By 99 I was living in a two bedroom town house not far from work and thinking about going to Uni and wondering how I'd manage it. This was also the time I discovered the internet and spent a lot of time in a beseen chatroom. I met some real idiots in that chat room. I also met some really nice people - mostly americans and canadians.

It was a pretty tough year for me. I was at about the lowest point esteem wise and emotionally that I've ever been in my life (apart from the PND after max was born).

[it]

nice one monster

in the months just before i 'was' 27, i just lost a stepson and a wife, i've already lost all financial assests and property (except clothes) when earlier i failed making a startup and just finished getting out of debt at 25, i had no college or professional degree, i had a two year hole in my resume as a stay at home dad, i was giving private lessons in english to scrap some money (with only 4 students for now) and trying to get articles published, i was sending resume's everywhere & applying for a gun license to be a security guard in case i don't find anything better, i was back at my mother's house, using my sister's computer while she's at boarding school, which isn't really powerful enough to run my hobby (gaming)... i had short hair for the first time since the army, starting to get to lazy too pull the gray hairs out, and was generally depressed to the point where getting up to shave and shower seemed like a massive achievement.

there will probably be no PhDs when i am actually 27, but getting back on my feet with a job and an apt, my own computer and mobile, maybe even some furniture, not to mention the abscure possibility of getting paid on the side for something i actually enjoy (writing) and being able to afford getting out and buying a rebound-oppertunity who i will probably only find attractive by virtue of not having the personality traits i hated in my xwife... i mean some nice interesting woman a drink or two...

those would be decent 'achievements' for when i am 27 from where i am standing right now.

[bluecuracao]

At 27...

I had my second job out of college, graphic design for another military contractor. It paid well, so I could afford to rent a whole house; a really nice Victorian townhouse with 3 bedrooms, an old clawfoot tub and brick patio on Capitol Hill. I was still in good shape after losing 40 pounds or so from the previous year.

But the house, great pay and great figure were just about the only good things I had going on that year. I was in an off-and-on relationship with a psycho. Looking back, I wish I'd been mature enough to learn to enjoy my own company...but sometimes these things have to play themselves out, I guess.

The job itself was really stressful. Long, long hours, and sexist treatment by my boss, coworker and some of the clients. Hard to believe workplace stuff like that could still happen in 1993.

And to top it all off, my parents' marriage was falling apart. It dragged out painfully, and ended in divorce the next year.

Wow, I hadn't realized what a crappy year that was until I started typing the second paragraph. I may not have a job, or be in the best shape...but I am so much happier now! At least until the unemployment benefits run out.

[ZenGum]

Hmmm ... in my second year of my PhD, living in a student residence in Canberra.

Life was pretty good, as far as I remember. But as they say, if you can remember your humanities degree, you didn't really do one.

[DanaC]

27...

I was in a long-term relationship, living together in fairly large two-bedroomed, rented house, which let out onto a shared yard, and one of the houses sharing said yard was my Brother's. There he lived with his wife, his two little girls, one still a babe in arms, and his various critters, (including a very small and bouncy rhodesian ridgeback called Amber)

My brother and my partner, J, were business partners running a small design firm with a range of highly-crafted products for the counter-culture market. I worked for them intermittently depending on my health, which was pretty bad at the time. Asthma had gone haywire, constant chest infections, pleurisy at one point. Eczema on overdrive.

Mum had recently moved here and had a house up the road. She also occasionally helped out. And her new little puppy Dante would be playing in her garden.

I was both very happy and very unhappy. The sense of being part of a collective, and of being such a close little gang was lovely. We had such big dreams.

We also, J and I, had a beautiful brown bearded collie pup, called Pilau. He'd have been 5 months old as J and I both turned 27 in the February. We'd had him for three months and already he had become pretty much the most important thing in my life.

Online gaming was a big thing for me back then. I was fully into my 4 year stint on Ultima Online. Running a roleplay guild and flamewarring on the boards.

I think I probably did believe that the business would make it big. But in truth it had to carry too much for it's young shoulders, and the market we were heading into was just about to die on its arse. The product really was gorgeous. My brother is a stunning designer. But they were well-made and pricey, and in the end the market became one of cheaply made Indian imports. One of which was a near exact copy of our flagship design, made in cheap materials and without some of the cleverer features, the result, we later learned, of the engineering firm we'd employed sending some of our reject stock to one of our competitors.

We would eventually become embroiled in a lengthy and pointless legal action to try and protect our intellectual copyright, but by then, frankly, it was too late. Though other designs did well, that first blow would leave a wound. And then when our major clients started going out of business...and international markets became dangerous to engage in (the US in particular), the business would end in bankruptcy.

But that was still to come. At 27 we were planning international sales. I was attending the Goethe Institute in Manchester, learning German, and J was scoping out possible inroads to America. Together they were travelling about to various exhibitions, and seeing clients in Amsterdam and Germany.

And when they went away, it was just me and Pilau. And already a little part of me was wondering how it would be if it was just the two of us in a little house.

No more arguments. No more midnight tears, slammed doors, rows over the dog's training regime, awkward silences, sinking feelings of life passing by ....

It was a funny year. In some ways the best. In others not. J and I were so tight in some ways. Closer than ever. But the treacherous little voice had already started. Did I want kids? Really? Given that I wanted to kill him every time he shouted at the dog, the idea of co-parenting was beginning to scare me. And...actually, I wasn't even that sure I wanted them anyway.

There were ups and downs to follow. Times of closeness, times of utter despair. We'd been together for 9 years. We'd stay together for another three and a half years.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Ahhh, 27 and strong as I could be... Driving a 2 year old modified Corvette and a '57 Chevy, good job/good money, working a 2nd job at a speed shop for fun, getting laid 6 nights a week. It was a very good year.

[monster]

1927?

[DanaC]

*snort*

[Undertoad]

At 27 I was married and had no idea just how I was about to be treated like shit and just put up with it for years and years.

[infinite monkey]

Married a year or so, then my world exploded.

[zippyt]

At 27 i was married a year , new job , close knit circle of friends , camping fishing , dinner partys all around , hell partys all around !!
Fun year !!!

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by zippyt

At 27 i was married a year , new job , close knit circle of friends , camping fishing , dinner partys all around , hell partys all around !!
Fun year !!!

Apart from only being married one year and the new job, how is this different from today?

[glatt]

At 27 I was married a year, I was working hard, but hadn't advanced much yet. We were both working and had a respectable dual income with no kids, so we had a higher standard of living. Went out to dinner a lot. Hadn't bought a house yet, and were still driving an old car. We went on nice vacations, but nothing exotic. Went for hikes on the weekends and got together frequently with friends. Went to bars for happy hours after work less and less. Often, at the end of a weekend we would be grumpy because we would feel like we hadn't done anything that weekend. So we tried to either fill our weekends with fun stuff or try to accomplish something. (Now our weekends have never ending lists of stuff to do, so we never feel that way.)

Basically it was a transition period. Starting to be grown up, but not with the kids and house yet.

[infinite monkey]

Your salad days.

(From Raising Arizona.)