25 November 2019

30, AT LAST

It feels like getting into a closet when you're 13, and coming out when you're already 30. That was how fast time flies these past 17 years.

I remember waving at my mother from across the lobby of my hostel, tears welling up in my eyes seeing her leaving the school when I was 13. Now that I'm 30 after so many years has passed, I am the one who sits next to her, driving her to places.

The 17 years went like a blur, all the pain that I kept inside for fear of being misunderstood, the nights I felt so afraid asking God if this is indeed His plan, the days I just wanted to disappear. The tears I shed while saying over and over again "It's OK not to be OK." The joy from getting a car, from completing my studies, for the scholarship, the awards, the blog page views, the mountains that I hiked, oh Lord that still feels so surreal.

They all went away, one after another.  

When you turn 30, there are at least 3 different versions of yourself exist; the person people expected you to be, the person YOU wanted to be, and the person that you are. Being 30, the challenge was not to decide what you wanted to be anymore, it's all about balancing those different versions of yourself; good and bad, fragile and strong, beautiful and ugly, vulnerable and sturdy, accepting the fact that each one of them is an integral part of you that makes you uniquely, you.

I am at that standpoint in my life, moving into the 4th decade of breathing, believing that I had achieved so little from my dreams, still bounded by my fears, still mourning the love I thought I had lost, and missing the younger days when I was brave enough and stupid enough to dream.

What the past decade of my life has taught me was that I am capable of changing and learning and recreating myself, I am capable of accepting defeat, that happiness comes from the smaller things in life, that hope is as dangerous as grudges. I learned to accept solitude, to embrace loneliness, to live life, to love infinitely. To regret, to feel indifferent.

30 is an arbitrary number, for some it bears no meaning. For some it means everything. But within this small last space before the number turns from 29 to 30, I could not help myself from feeling so emotional for the past and fearful of the future. Have I grown sufficiently as a person? Have I obeyed obediently as a servant? Have I fulfilled my duty filially as a child? From this point onward, being reminded that I am no longer 20-something pangs my chest with a sort of sadness I never thought thing as an arbitrary as a number could give.

Age is just a number, but the receding hairline, the backache, the fatigue tell no lies. 

This decade surely has passed, but I carry forward the lessons well into the next.

On my 30th birthday,  I am reminding myself to be grateful, to stay humble, to be true to my nature and principles even in distressing times. To always be the light that brightens up everything around me, to always love no matter what.

Happy birthday, myself.



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