Reflection and preparation.
The end and the beginning.
Standing at both the finish and the start line.
Hello twenty-nine.
I wrote a very specific Type A list of everything I wanted to accomplish in my 20s. Some goals have been completed, some goals have changed drastically, and some are saving themselves for a better time. And truthfully, I don’t even know where that list is anymore so I’m just guessing in the dark which is a bit more accurate representation of what my twenties have felt like. Setting my sights on goals, lists, dreams, ideas, and finding out on the other side, that none of it was all that important. That going for it all was as equally important as letting it all go.
Not too many people know that I have a tattoo at the base of my neck, an incomplete circle. At the time I got it (early in my twenties), it represented the imperfection in beauty and served as a reminder that I am still a work in progress. While that still holds true, new meanings have come from it and as I look back on my twenties, I realize it symbolizes more strongly the path that I’ve gone. A path headed in one precise direction to make a perfect life, a perfect circle, but yet with a degree of adjustment that has eventually set me on a parallel track of a new journey. I believe in full circles, and this year feels like the closing of a circle, an almost complete ring on a tree marking this decade’s growth.
If you can’t remember or need validation, your twenties are tough as shit. You’re constantly vacillating between who you were and who you’re trying to be and finally realize that somewhere in the middle you can just be. Twenty-nine feels very in between, with one foot in one decade, and one foot stepping towards the next. And being in the middle of the past and future —present — I’ve learned is probably the best place to be. From almost a decade’s worth of life lessons learned, my twenties have showered me with more wisdom, honesty, and compassion than ever, along with opportunities to nurture my body, mind, and spirit that I graciously get to take along with me for the next decade.
As I wrap up the last year of my twenties, it only makes sense to take all I’ve learned and celebrate it. Go out with a bang. Wrap it up with a big ol’ bow and make it shine. Whether that’s financial, emotional, physical, or all three combined plus some, I feel a healthy urge to pick out what is most important for me to do in my “twenties” and do the damn thing this year because you’re only in your twenties for so long.
And to future me, we’ll deal with thirty when it gets here. But by setting the stage, tending to where I’m at right now with the hands of a twenty-something, and planting strong seeds, I’m patiently eager to start the next decade with fertile soil and a healthy environment for all the glorious blooming to come.
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