(Photo by A.R.S. Photos)
Last week I turned 35. This past year, I’ve felt like 35 was going to be a hard one for me. I’ve made the joke that once I turn 35, I might as well just round up to 40… which isn’t entirely wrong in how I feel now but it’s not really right either. My 30s has been filled with lessons – more than I’d care to think about to be honest. In the last 5 years, I’ve gotten divorced, lost some of the my longest term friends, really fallen into a new passion of ballroom dancing, lived through a pandemic, dove into trauma therapy, made new friends, helped create a really awesome little queer community and family, went through more relationships and breakups than I had in my entire life previous to that, got a puppy, self isolated and almost completely stepped away from that queer community and family I’d fallen in love with, had some massive health scares, traveled to some new parts of the world, moved to a new state part time, changed careers, started to work toward having a new community of friends, planned a whole new career path over the next 5 years, fell in love in a way I didn’t think I ever would, explored new parts of my gender and identity, and so much more. So here’s my list of some of the lessons that I’ve learned over the last 35, but probably mostly the last 5 years….
- Everything changes. This one is obvious and we’ve all heard it before but goddamn its more true than ever now. Imagining where my life was 5 years ago and where I’m at now and everything that’s happened in the interim is absolutely wild. The number of people who have come into my life and exited it, the amount of change I’ve experienced internally and externally, the lifestyle changes I’ve experienced, and the changes I’ve seen in other people and their lives is a little overwhelming to actually sit down and think about.
- Dance… even if you think it looks stupid. Once you get past feeling dumb, its fun. I promise.
- I feel lost 95% of the time and that’s okay. I’ve come to accept that I have no clue as to what is going to happen – no matter how intentionally I plan things. We can make all of the plans in the world and hope that we know what’s coming, but the reality is that everything is so unpredictable. We can do our best to guide our own lives in the directions that we want at the time – and sometimes those things actually do work out – but those desires might change or the desires of other people involved might change or a damn pandemic might hit and everything goes askew.
- Laugh often. My life feels drastically better no matter whats going on in it when I’m finding moments to laugh also.
- Say ‘no’ to things you don’t want to do. I wasted so much of my life saying yes to way too many things that I didn’t want to do and I regret a lot of them.
- Say ‘yes’ to the things that you think you might enjoy even if you might be a little uncomfortable. New things can be hard but also can be a lot of fun.
- Work through your shit. We have to face all of the stuff we don’t want to, otherwise it’ll run our lives. I’ve always self identified as being pretty fucked up (I say that in the most gentle way possible at this point though because who isn’t in this fucked up world that we live in). I’ve struggled with codependency, self hatred, insecurities, the emotional and physical consequences of sexual and emotional trauma, and a plethora of other things… and I’ve also addressed all of those things in therapy. I haven’t managed to work through all of them in their entirety (nor do I really think I’ll ever completely work through some things) but I am in constantly working on the things that cause me to do, think, and feel shitty things.
- Read. Get lost in a book every once in a while rather than watching a TV series or movie. There’s something that feels different about reading an actual book than staring at a screen. I hate screen time even though I know I spend way too much time doing it.
- Go out in nature. There’s something about being surrounded by trees or the desert or fields or whatever it is that seems peaceful to you, that makes me feel way more appreciative of this weird little world that we live on.
- Comparing ourselves to other people will never make us happier. Whether we’re comparing ourselves in a way that makes us think that we’re ‘better’ than someone else or in a way that makes us think that we’re ‘worse’ than someone else, the comparisons themselves are what’s hurting us. If we’re comparing ourselves in a way to make us feel better about ourselves, that’s a pretty shitty thing to do. We’re placing people below us in order for us to feel better about ourselves and all that does is show us how insecure we actually are. Don’t do that. If we’re comparing ourselves in a way that makes us feel worse about ourselves, chances are that we’re comparing our real life to someone else’s highlights and its probably not realistic anyway. We’re all different and we’ve all gone through different things in life that have gotten us to where we are. Focus on yourself rather than other people and happiness will eventually come from the inside (that’s where it comes from no matter what anyway).
- Travel if and when you can. Experience different cultures. We’re all so different and wrapped up in our own little worlds that I think sometimes we forget that there are so many other different kinds of worlds out there too.
- Don’t get matching tattoos. I’ve learned this one the hard way – multiple times. Just don’t do it.
- Live authentically. This one can be really fucking hard. You know what I think is actually the hardest part about it though? Allowing ourselves to grow and change authentically. Who we authentically were 1, 5, or 10 years ago is probably not (and shouldn’t be) who we are today. There are always growing pains and change sucks and is hard and is also impossible to avoid. As long as we’re living as honestly as we can with the information that we have in that moment, we’re doing our damn well best to be authentic. Of course there will be times when we’re in the midst of change and we realize that how we’re living in that moment isn’t how we feel internally, but we have to let ourselves change and move on from past versions of ourselves in order to realign with who we are or who we are becoming.
- Hug people better. Your partners, your family members, your friends, your acquaintances that you hug… hold on to them for an extra half a second at least. I’ve realized this is appreciated more often than not and it’s almost always appreciate by me unless you’re being a creep.
- Tell people that you love them. Easy. Simple. And also can be hard at times. You never know when your last chance to say it will be though.
- Grieve. Let yourself grieve whatever you need to grieve – people, relationships, friendships, deaths, past versions of ourselves, expectations or hopes that we had that we didn’t reach, lives that we thought we were going to live but never did. Whatever it is that you need to grieve, do it. Otherwise, they’ll just stick with you and seep into those deep dark cracks of ourselves until something happens that unearths those losses and you have choose to ignore them until they resurface again or actually face them this time.
- Work toward having a secure attachment with people, partners, whomever. Anxious, avoidant, and disorganized attachments suck to deal with. Find the people willing to work toward secure attachment with you.
- Take more pictures. My memory sucks but pictures help me remember all of the little details that would have been forgotten.
- We only get one life. Obviously… but I feel like we forget this sometimes. Sometimes I look at my last week or month and think about how I’ve barely lived. I’ve done my day to day things and done the things that I need to do and survived, but I haven’t actually done the things that make me happiest or done the things that make me feel like I’m really living. We only get one of these things, that we really know for sure, so actually live. Sometimes all we can do is survive but in the times when we have the capacity for even just a little bit more, don’t forget to live.
- Enjoy the little moments. The little moments end up being the biggest ones years later.
- Pet all the dogs. (I suppose this only applies if you like dogs.) I’ve never been disappointed that I went out of my way to pet a cute pup.
- People come and go from our lives. Whether its past loves or past friends, people will leave and we we will leave people. It’s unavoidable. Strangers will become people we never think we can live without and then they become strangers again. I don’t do well with this one. I’ll sit and dwell on what I could have done differently for years or decades after a relationship or friendship has ended… even when there might not be anything drastically different or even if I’m better off without those people. There’s something in me that struggles to let go even when I’ve been hurt but I’ve started to get better at this thankfully. Sometimes it takes a big change or finding a way to feel like you’ve got a fresh start in order to move forward and actually let go of the past and the people in it.
- Be nice… but not in the roll over and take whatever comes at you way. Stand up for yourself whenever you need to.
- Walk away from the people who treat you like shit. Don’t even entertain them if they treat other people like shit… you won’t be the exception.
- We are insignificant. When it comes to this world, this universe, this moment in all of time and space… we don’t really matter. Even the most famous people of our time will eventually be forgotten, so we definitely will be forgotten. Most people don’t even know that we exist, BUT there’s a sense of freedom in that fact. If most people don’t even know that we exist, then we should be living our lives however we want and need to live our lives. I have spent so much wasted time on thinking about what other people think of me that sometimes I really need to remind myself of this one. There are so many people out there that we’re going to come into contact with for a moment, for a week, for a month, for a year, and maybe even for decades but the reality of our lives is that 99.9% of the people we run into wont even remember us years or decades from now. Stop worrying about the people who don’t matter.
- We are really fucking significant to some people. Maybe it’s one of those momentary interactions that actually is incredibly impactful in a persons life, but chances are that there are just a few people in our lives that we actually mean so much to and that actually mean so much to us. It could be family members or lovers or friends, but those people are the ones that we should stay focused on. Everything wont always be rainbows and butterflies with those people, but it’s the ones that are willing to put in the effort to actually maintain relationships and friendships that we should focus on. Hard conversations are going to happen, but they’re only going to happen with the people that actually matter to us and vice versa. If people aren’t willing to have those conversations or put in that effort, walk away because they fall into the category of insignificance listed above. The people who matter will stay and you’ll stay for the ones that matter to you.
- Spend time with your ‘family’, blood family or chosen family.
- Take more selfies or hire someone to do a photo shoot of you. We’re never going to be this young ever again and we’re never going to look like this ever again. I have no doubt that I’ll appreciate everything I have and am now way more in the future than I do in this moment so I’d like to have photos to remember who I was and to look back on and appreciate me for who I was.
- Or appreciate who we are and what we look like now… but this one is much easier said than done. Those days or moments that you actually feel good about yourself though, soak those up as much as you can.
- Take care of yourself. Eat some vegetables, exercise, stay hydrated, get enough sleep, take care of your mental health to best of your ability… we only get one body and one mind. Don’t fuck this one up and if you do, do your best to fix what you can once you actually start to care. I’m 35 and I spend probably 80 percent of my free time now just trying to take care of all of the aches and pains that I ignored for years with the hope that when – or if – I’m 80, I can actually walk and enjoy life still.
- Routines are so important. Even though routines can be boring, I’ve found that they create a sense of stability even when things are chaotic. Something as simple as waking up 10 minutes earlier to have a cup of coffee and take a few deep breathes before starting the chaos of your day can be the difference between today was absolute shit and today was a good day.
- Be playful and childish at times. Taking everything so seriously all the time doesn’t leave space to actually have fun.
- Be alone. Whether you’re in a relationship or single or have a family or live alone, make sure you have alone time. We can’t actually reflect on ourselves if we’re constantly stimulated by the people and things around us. Taking time to just be and to breathe and to take care of our own internal thoughts and processes can help us create the capacity for having other people in our lives and having actual, deep conversations with people.
- Love hard. You are not too much with your big feelings, you just haven’t found the right person who can hold them all with you.
- You are enough. Once you realize this and feel this inside yourself… you’ll stop looking to other people to tell you.
Today’s lesson: 35 is a bigger number than I thought because this took a long time to write this up.
Until next time,
Chelsea
(Photo by A.R.S. Photos)
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