Musings for 29
TWENTY NOINE! TWENTY NOINE!
Author’s note: Happy birthday to me! 🎂
I’ve been doing this thing for a couple years.
And by ‘this thing’ I mean I’ve been collecting little tidbits that make my brain stop for a moment and reconsider myself. It’s like a set of training wheels being magically poofed onto a runaway bike at the right time. They might not stop me, but they do slow me down.
I turned 29 this week. As I look ahead at the last year of my 20s, I’m holding space (🤌🏻) for the girl who got me to this point.
These are just some thoughts I’d like to share.
I started writing lists for myself when I was 26.
Specifically it was a list of 27 quotes/musings that resonated with me. I also went forward and added a handful of new musings while I was 27 for 28 year-old me. And so on and so forth.
Below are ten of my favorites that I’ve collected over the last few years. I hope at least one of them gives you pause.
the time will pass anyway
I had a few fortune-cookie sayings like this in my list, including the adage: it takes ten years to become an overnight success. The time will slip by. It doesn’t matter if doing something will take five years — start it now. The time is going to tick by and longevity means you have to begin.
I, personally, want to have a career until I kick the bucket and spend the rest of my life haunting libraries. To do that, that meant I made myself start a project, finish it, and then pursue all the avenues I knew to get me where I wanted to be in my career. I can’t be a bestselling author in ten years if I don’t start building my audience now, putting in the work, and showing the value of my words.
“Living is enough of a purpose. You don’t have to be living your life for anything greater than that.” (Lily Mayne)
In Mayne’s Monstrous series, there’s a lot to love, but this is one of my all time favorite quotes from the bonus content. I took a second when I read it to just digest the words. I think life is often lived on fast-forward mode, chasing and racing for the next thing, but it’s also a worthwhile reminder to know that your days aren’t measured by your output.
Your productivity doesn’t directly influence your worth as a human being.
your voice matters
As straightforward as this is, I think we all need the reminder. Sometimes all it takes is one person speaking up to cause a chain reaction. Inversely, I know my writing has power.
If my work can evoke emotion, stoke fires, and maybe heal a few traumas, then it is worth my time to sit down and keep creating my stories even on hard days.
don’t over explain it
Inversely, I had to relearn in my 20s that I’m allowed to just shut up. Not everything needs an explanation and not everyone deserves me taking the time to give one. You can walk away from anything. You can set boundaries and then completely wipe your hands of it.
That’s free will, baby.
(Shout out to every people pleaser who breaks out into a cold sweat saying no)
Fill up your own cup and let them fall in love with the overflow. (Harry Styles)
Funnily enough, when Harry Styles was touring in 2023 I got served a video by the algorithm of him giving advice to a fan that made me stop everything and put it in my notes. Filling up my own cup, to me, means focusing on myself, my writing, and what I love.
I keep in mind that making myself joyful will always have a more positive effect on the world than my focusing on anyone other than myself. I can’t control them, I can control myself.
I will not water myself down to be more digestible. You can choke.
In the spirit of the last one — this is the feral energy I’m trying to embody. It might not work every day, but it is a good reminder that not everyone will like me. Not everyone should like me.
I am who I am, and I’m no longer going to change that just to make someone else more comfortable.
If you never bleed, you're never going to grow. (Taylor Swift)
folklore is one of those albums that will never leave me (along with evermore). I love this lyric. I love that this distills the concept of understanding sometimes growth takes risk and sometimes success means failing.
Blood, sweat, and tears make a project worthwhile.
I haven't met all of me yet
There are a lot of ‘reflective’ tidbits in this list, but I really enjoy this one because it reframes the future as something exciting to my anxious brain. Yes the uncertain can be terrifying — but there’s also so much that can happen in a year. This last year of my life is proof of that, I wrote and published two books just because I decided enough is enough and I wanted to start my career. That’s huge!
I can’t wait to me the future me who knows more, who has seen more, and who will hopefully have even more knowledge to reflect back upon.
“It’s good to be alone when you need to be alone. But I think it’s better to find people you can be happy with." (Kathryn Moon)
Self-admitted, I isolate. I’m consciously working on being better about my openness and accepting friendship as it comes in its variety of stages and levels. Again, like Mayne, there is a lot to love about Moon’s writing across her various books — but this quote will always stick with me.
Don't borrow grief from the future.
For the final reminder, this is probably the heaviest on the list.
Grief can be a lot of things. It can be for people, places, and things that have or haven’t occurred in your life. But what I’m working hard not to fall into is borrowing grief for future events that may or may not even happen. Sometimes my brain does run away with me, but catastrophizing isn’t productive.
I don’t want to be scared of where I might be in a month, a year, or even a decade. I want to move forward in everything I do with my chin held high and a hand extended behind me to help anyone else I can.
That’s it for me.
I hope that one or multiple of these spoke to you. While writing I was fully aware that this post will likely come across as cheesy or even a little cringe, but I know the younger me needed to hear these things. The older me needed reminders of them as well. Sometimes you just gotta be cringe. Live, laugh, love it up.
Treat yourselves to something nice this month in my honor!
HAPPY BIRTHDAYYYYY!