a love letter to twenty nine
14.03.2023
If I wrote this when I was eight years old, I'd say twenty nine means to be an adult and probably pretty boring. Twenty nine means to be engaged or freshly married with a baby and maybe a nice house or at least a nice car. Twenty nine means to be a grown up who has their life together and probably doesn’t have many things to worry about, except making sure their car has petrol to goto work and that there’s milk in the fridge for your morning coffee. I’ll never be twenty nine because I’ll always be eight, at heart anyway, so I don’t really need to worry about those things.
Twenty nine for me, looks like grieving. Grieving the time gone and grieving for the girl I spent all these years undervaluing. Twenty nine feels like wanting to send 14 year old me a letter and telling her that it doesn’t really matter about the details in the end, it’s the person you become because of those experiences. Twenty nine looks like the beginning of Spring, when the world starts to feel lighter, brighter, saturated. It looks like finally turning loneliness into solitude and in that being able to recognize the incredible life I’ve continued to create for myself. (I was never lonely, I was just alone within myself). Twenty nine means to still, whole heartedly rely on the love from your mother every single day (where would I be without you?) It means to be one of those people who have started saying “oh my wrinkles are getting worse” or “once you wreck your back, it’s never the same” (Unfortunately, I thought this chapter would have been a little while longer off yet). Friendships feel different now too than they did at eight years old or even just a few years ago. I’m growing more of an appreciation for all of the wonderful love stories I’ve found within those relationships. It’s no longer just the hungover days in bed together, keeping the Uber eats riders in business or the “omg guess what” text exchanges at 1pm on a Tuesday afternoon. It’s the care I feel from the people I choose to be surrounded by, the love we show each other when the world feels dark, the laughter we share that accentuates the joy we already feel. As the years have rolled, I have learnt how to seek the company of people who make me radiate brighter, something I wasn’t always doing (I’m sorry I spent this long searching for intimacy within the arms of someone who only seeks pleasure and I’m sorry it took me this long to realize. I’m sorry I didn’t spend enough time showing proper gratitude in the best moments I’ve been given so far, (I make sure I do now) and I’m sorry I spent so long never letting you just be you, without fear.)
I find these years don’t move along a line, but more move outward, into a circle that radiates as the time moves. Radiates with more life, more experience, stories that will make your belly ache, right into the years to come. The older you get, the more you understand what it means to be the circle that is you and in that understanding, you begin to radiate brighter, a brightness you can not only feel but see. It feels good to feel all of the experiences, even if bad. Pain is an opportunity to take control of the directions you’re taking, an opportunity to turn yourself into something better, stronger. Pain gives you a nudge and reminds you that you’re alive and maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Maybe the pain is what makes us brighter after all?
I sit here, writing this all down, the sun stinging my skin, sneakers in the sand ‘cos it’s not warm enough for sandals quite yet. Tears pouring down my cheeks due to the enlightening realization that all of those experiences in my twenty nine years alive, lead me to right now (it doesn’t really matter about the details in the end, it’s the person you become because of those experiences). A knowing, that I will miss this moment, enjoying this new found appreciation for who I am, who I’m becoming, who I’ll become. Sitting in it as if I’ve come back in time to feel it once more. Appreciating what it is to be me, here, because in another 29 years, I’ll be another person and I never want to forget what it felt like to be who I am right now.
If you read my blogs and enjoy them, please do reach out and send your love, it is always appreciated. - Holly