I'm 30 Years Old Today

I’m 30 years old today. 

I’m 30 years old and I have acne and frizzy hair that I routinely trim with a pair of kitchen scissors. I work at a grocery store and have $27 in my savings account. I eat frozen pizza for dinner at least once a week. I’ve never been to Paris or London or Tokyo. I don’t own pantyhose or red lipstick or a briefcase like I imagined I would when I was 10 years old looking at my self in the mirror, daydreaming of curves and smooth hair and success and beauty, dreaming of becoming a woman.

I am thirty years old. My arms are covered in scars, oven burns and tattoos. I have lost more friends than I can count on one hand and gained more than I can count on both hands and feet. I have spoken at funerals of people that I love. I have held my best friend’s baby and I have watched my nephews and nieces learn to walk and talk. I have seen the profound love my parents have for their grandchildren.

I’m 30 years old and I live in a beautiful apartment close enough to the beach to walk down only in my bathing suit, take a dip, walk home and shower all before breakfast. My home is full of art and plants and inherited treasures like crystal glassware, recipe books and terracotta sculptures. My fridge is covered in photos of my closest friends and their babies and my sweet dog, Honey, who has spent the last decade as my most constant companion and Max who I can say with certainty is the love of my life.

Our windowsill is full of cards, thanks yous, condolences, happy birthdays. Our fridge is full of hot sauce. Our room is full of books that we rarely read because we’re too busy watching reality tv and eating take out and staring at our phones and talking in silly accents and laughing and kissing.

The last decade has been a pendulum of joy and pain, but as I end this era and enter another, there is a slowing down. I’m coming closer to my center.

I sometimes say the wrong thing or think badly of others or of myself. I get wrapped up in expectations and bogged down by comparison. I let anxiety overcome me and go through spells of depression, but I am learning to be patient with myself, even on the bad days. There is a clearness, a dissipating of the fog and the constant wonder ‘what is this all for’.

I not only see, but actually believe that every moment has the potential to fill my heart up, the way I used to think a big house or a big career or a perfect body might. 

If I’ve learned anything in 30 years, it’s that freedom is found only in surrender. That control is the enemy of joy. That the person I am is better than the person I dream of being because she is real and she is here right now.

I am creatively inspired. I am excited by the potential of success but I am not beholden to it in order to be happy. I am enjoying the process, the writing, the work, the constant need to surrender.

If I told 20 year old me what life looks like for 30 year old, she would be at the same time delighted and mortified and I think that’s just the nature of growing older. I’m less worried about what people think and much more concerned with what actually makes me happy.

What I’m looking forward to in the next decade:

1. Continuing to write and create (this newsletter!)

2. Cultivating my personal style

3. Traveling (We’re going to NYC at the end of the month!)

4. Continuing to love Max

5. Making new friends, keeping the old (lol)

6. Becoming a better cook, trying new recipes

7. Spending time with my family

8. Every moment I have with Honey (She turns 11 in a week!)

9. The beautiful cake I’m going to eat with my friends later today (Shoutout to

   Kassie Mendieta
   )

10. Learning more about myself

For my 27th birthday, I went camping with some friends and when the ranger came and told us we had too many cars at our site and fires were prohibited, I pouted for the next couple hours and finally declared, we might as well call the whole thing off!

Luckily my friends convinced me to stay.

The next morning, Krista made a feast. We spent the day on a foggy Northern California beach watching the dogs run in the sand, dig holes and chew on sticks.

Sara gave me a stick and poke tattoo of twinkly stars on my shoulder while Charlotte pulled tarot cards, relaying to me what the future would hold. They stuck candles in a couple peanut butter cups and sang to me until I blew them out and made a wish ( a wish that in the past three years has absolutely come true). I fell asleep that night under the stars whispering to my best friend until we both drifted off to sleep.

It was a perfect day.

Oct 8, 2020

I still get that funny birthday feeling, the desire for control, the disappointment when things don’t go exactly as I planned. I guess there’s something a little unsettling about acknowledging that another year has passed and reckoning with how different life is compared to what I expected it to be, but I’m learning to be patient with myself and open to the possibility that it could be even better than what I was imagining.

---