#third decade

a lesson from your 30s

“One day, you'll look at pictures with much kinder eyes and say, ‘I was a beautiful little thing!’"

“I don't pay attention to the world ending. It has ended for me many times and began again in the morning.”

“The gift of old age is God’s gift. Accept it gratefully. If you rage against it, deny it, wish it away, you won’t have peace.”

There'll be a moment when you realize you're 27 when yesterday you were just 17; and you wouldn't be able to tell how a decade passed away and your life got divided into before and afters. The fury of youth will subdue and nothing will really change but everything will feel different when you look at old photographs and blurry videos taken on cheap mobile phones. Scents will remind you of childhood and certain friends you don't talk to anymore, hangouts will become reunions and mom's burnt pie will become the best food you ever had. And I know on some days you won't be able to show anything of those ten years, but I hope you remember to breathe, and let go of the knot in your chest. I hope you go out in the sun and live a little, because tomorrow is 37.

'30 is so old'? You've only been here for three decades. In two of them, you weren't able to drink, rent a car, or be responsible for yourself. Please wake up. You are a fresh flower in the garden of life.

Now you are grown up, or maybe not so much grown up but rather lonely and trying to make sense of things.

I have this strange feeling that I'm not myself anymore. It's hard to put into words, but I guess it's like I was fast asleep, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again—that sort of feeling.