Today I turn 30.
30 feels like the first significant age milestone I’ve had in a while and it has me thinking a lot about the last decade and the decade to come.
My 20's brought a lot of life-changing events, and to be honest, I’m kind of hoping that this decade has a few less. I associate my early twenties with bad breakups, a very poor choice for my first career, and chronic illness.
I think I just had very little sense of self.
That made it easier to stay in relationships that weren’t right and to enter into a career that was a terrible match with who I am. From there it was just a simple formula: Toxic Relationships + Toxic Work = Toxic Body.
It took a few years to dig out of that mess, and along the way I picked up on clues here and there about what was actually a good fit for me: which people lifted me up, what kinds of work felt fulfilling, and how to maintain my energy. I’m still looking for clues, and I have a feeling I will continue to throughout this decade and hopefully into each succeeding one. I don’t really think there is an end point to this evolution—at least not any time soon. Reincarnation and the idea that we live many lives hinges on the idea that we are always a work in progress. We can choose to learn and evolve, to heal the broken parts of ourselves and come closer to alignment with our souls. But it takes more than one try to get it right.
I don’t really know what this next decade will bring or what I will write about on my 40th birthday-what I could have seen more clearly at 30 if only I had known myself better. I can only hope that I continue to look for those clues along the way, to listen to that voice inside of me that I know can be trusted. Why? Because listening to it is what brought me to Andy and Theo, it's what put me on a new career path and it's what healed my body. I spent the first 30 years of my life honing this skill. And now that I have it, I'm pretty psyched about what the next 30 will look like.
As always, thank you for reading, and if you could drop off a plate of cupcakes just like the one in the photo above, that would be much appreciated.
Mari