They say your twenties are for making the mistakes, your thirties are for learning the lessons and your forties are for buying the drinks. Yes I’ll admit, “they” in this instance happen to be Carrie Bradshaw, but I for one always thought there was much wisdom within her wackiness.

She must have had something right, the Internet abounds with lists of what people think our twenties should be for.

Your twenties are for new experiences, being jobless or carless or even temporarily homeless, but still carefree. They’re for getting way too drunk and for going on countless bad dates; they’re for getting a ticket for jaywalking and giving the officer a false name. They’re your “selfish” years, a time for “doing you,” and inadvertently messing up all kinds of stuff along the way.

My twenties are more than half over. So far, they’ve been about breastfeeding instead of bar hopping, taking care of a sick child instead of nursing a hangover, trying to teach the finer points of toilet etiquette to a toddler who’d rather crap her pants. My time to be selfish ended when I was 21.

And yet, I’ve rarely felt even a moment’s remorse about missing out on my decade of wild nights and idiotic mistakes. All that freedom is nothing in comparison to what I’ve gained as a mother. I wouldn’t give up that title for all the crazy mistakes in the world, no matter how fun some of them may be.

There is only one thing I sometimes wish I could get back, one part of my crazy, selfish twenties I would’ve liked to experience. The ability to move from one place to another and stay for a month, or a year, and then move on to the next.

Exploring your passions, and experimenting with your address while you do it, is something much easier done without a small child to think about.

The list of people Skye misses so much it requires a weekly meltdown to express has gotten one person longer. Another of my very close friends recently decided to move, to get out of Montana and explore wide-open spaces of a different variety. Skye’s “Aunty” Jordyn is now soaking up the rays down in Arizona, and Skye has another state to wish was closer to ours.

Our Aunty Jordyn is off to explore a new place, learn from new people, grow in more amazing ways – all the things she should be doing as a single girl in her mid-twenties.

She is not the first close friend from my college years that has moved away. Yet for some reason, her decision to move beyond this wonderful little bubble we call Missoula has got me thinking; more so than the others. It has made me wonder for the first time if maybe I am stuck, like so many people feared I would be if I stayed here after I was done with school.

If I’m using the fact that I have a young child as a crutch, an excuse for choosing comfort over fear of the unknown.

I think it makes sense to want to plant roots after you have children. There’s something about granting that sense of stability to your kids that makes you feel like you’re getting it right. Unless jobs require it, most parents don’t want their kids to change zip codes multiple times before they graduate high school.

But when does that desire for stability stand in the way of our personal growth? I don’t really want to leave this place. It’s where I met my best friends, where my daughter was born, where I became myself.

I’m still not sure if staying here in this last best place is by choice or necessity. There’s only one thing I feel certain about; becoming a mother was absolutely what my twenties were for.

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