On turning 30
Hello old friend,
Last week, in an annually expected turn of events, I turned 30 years old. THIRTY. The retrospection hits me every year but this year it felt vaguely chill. I got married to my best friend last month and moved across countries to start our sweet life together. For the longest time, I didn’t unpack a whole bag of emotions that our wedding bought to the surface. Part of that resistance also entailed facing that I was soon to be a very 30-year-old. Naturally, I found myself eager to understand who I am going to become now in this new year, in this new country, and in this new chapter of my life. I did find a calmness within me that assured me that I was safe, now more than ever before.
Over the last decade, I graduated college with a degree in Architecture, moved to the mountains to run an Airbnb for a year, shifted gears to graphic design and illustration, worked the oddest of jobs, and found the truest love in friendship. In these ten years, I have taken on so many roles, learned and abandoned so many burning passions (some of which include actual human beings), left cities I thought I’d forever call home, and found a home in places I was called to with merely a suitcase full of stuff. I have been broke, I have wept very big tears, I have fought and raged, and fallen many times, like an arrogant empire. And I have risen many a time to find my footing in the most glorious ways as well. I can say with profound fullness that there have been instances of grace and providence in my 20s that cannot be explained. Many people say that this delicate decade in human life, is where you grow through what you go through and it couldn’t be truer for my life experience. My 20s were spectacular. I did it all, except for certain brand of crazy that I just don’t encourage for anyone. I’ve felt the entire spectrum of human emotions, and in retrospect, I can say it was worth every bit. I tried so hard to find myself and lost myself so many times in the process. The myriad of highs and lows that I experienced has been unreal, and I’m grateful for all of it. All because it makes me who I am.
I can’t really believe that I am indeed 30 years old. What I can’t believe more is how proud I am of myself at this age. I did it, I somehow managed to live through a wild decade of this marvelous life. So I’m here to start journaling it as it does happen to me. Not in retrospect, but in bursts of hot romantic impulses - the same way it’s occurring right now. I’ve tried very hard for the last ten years to edit and refine my perspective of the world - all because I’ve been too concerned and cared too deeply about the opinions of others. As I spin around the earth, all I want to rid my soul of is this unnecessary, unrequited need for perfectionism. It’s a sucker of all goodness that life unconditionally offers and I’m game to let it bloody go. Because in the words of the wise Liz Gilbert “the clock is ticking, and the world is spinning, and we simply do not have time anymore to think so small.”
So here I am, a week into my 30th spin, promising you, my old friend, the reader of these letters, the witness of my ongoing journal, that I will live fearlessly. I will create fiercely. I will surrender to the divine plan that is for me. And most of all I will not shy away from who I truly am. I refuse to tailor myself to suit the needs of the world because I do not exist for the world, but it for me.
Until next time,
Onward x