Yes, I’m about four months too early but here I am none the less. It wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t planning ahead, now would it? I have never been a fan of new year’s resolutions, but I do try and set my intentions every year on my birthday for what I want to work on the next year. Every year I pick something to focus on and then I actively try to improve in that department. The whole point is to actually be realistic about goals and stick to them, right? But this year I’m turning 30, and as a result I have found myself reflecting on the last decade more so than the last year.

I have never been one to really dread birthdays, but I will be the first to admit that I am extremely hard on myself if I don’t feel like I’m where I’m “supposed to be” for whatever abstract marker I’ve given myself for an age. When I turned 21 I interned in the Senate that summer. When I turned 25 I was in Law School. I’ll spare you all the other years, but here I am approaching 30 at a bit of a loss of what my marker is even supposed to be anymore. I really have never been concerned about getting married, or having kids, or owning a home. When I was younger I wanted to grow up and live in a city with a cool career and be financially independent. Well I did that. Now what?

I think sometimes we neglect to acknowledge that at the end of meeting your goals can come uncertainty, uncomfortableness, and to be quite frank, a bad attitude. We get so caught up in wanting more, doing more, being more, that we forget to pause and enjoy and be grateful for where we are at. For accomplishing all that we put the work into. We are too concerned about knowing what we need to do next. I’m going to be honest, I haven’t been dreading my birthday but I’ve had a real sour attitude with myself about feeling stagnant and not knowing what I’m doing. And though I often try to remind myself perspective is everything, sometimes it takes a minute for that reality to catch up with us. I’ve very much been focused and worried about the wrong things with this birthday. Today my other perspective of turning 30 finally hit me.

What a blessing I am entering a new decade with a blank slate. How exciting that I get to reflect and decide what new goals I want to work on in my 30’s. Because I can say in all sincerity: every. single. thing. I wanted to accomplish or do in my 20’s I have. Everything I said I was going to do, I’ve done. Everywhere I’ve said I wanted to go, I went. Every place I’ve said I wanted to live, I did. Now, I didn’t always get there in the route I imagined I would, and as a result I think it’s been easy for me to overlook the accomplishment and not be appreciative. But I still did it. I don’t give myself too much credit often, but I am going to for this. I really am leaving my 20’s having left it all out on the field in the ways I wanted to.

Even in realizing that, I have no idea what I am doing. And that’s ok. I know I’ve said it before, and I probably will say it again. Because it’s important for people to remember you don’t have to have it all figured out to accomplish what you want. You don’t have to have the same goals forever. You don’t have to want the same things either. Just learn to appreciate where you are at in the moment, because at one point you made a decision to put the work in to get here. Down the road, we can appreciate where we’ve gotten to then too. It’s all in the perspective. I’m grateful I’ve finally learned to give myself some grace, to appreciate where I’ve been, where I’m at, and where I’m going. I’m grateful with age I’ve learned to stop worrying about what everyone else is doing, and worry about what I want to be doing and if I’m doing it. I’m learning to pull a McConaughey circa 2014 Oscars. The only person I’m chasing is me. If you have never heard that speech I encourage you to look it up it’s a pretty solid message, but I will leave you with the end of it:

_{“I’m never going to be my hero. I’m not going to obtain that and that’s fine with me because it keeps me with somebody to keep on chasing. So to any of us, whatever those things are and whatever it is we look up to, whatever it is we look forward to and whoever it is we’re chasing, to that I say Amen. To that I say alright, alright, alright. And just keep living, huh?” – Matthew McConaughey}

Now I get to decide what I want to accomplish my next ten years, and just start doing it. My wish for you is that you can do the same.

                                                                                                        Alright, Alright, Alright,

Kels

Jul 26, 2021 at 8:26 PM