30 Things I Learned in My Twenties

I'm 30 today.

I don't feel particularly interested in celebrating myself.

I've always thought birthdays belong partly to our parents. Two people met, somehow found each other in this enormous world, and through an almost absurd sequence of biological and existential events, we got to be here.

My mom carried me. She gave birth to me. My parents raised me.

So if anything, thank you, Mom and Dad.

I made it to 30. We did it.

But changing decades does make you reflect.

My twenties were not linear.

I built things. Lost things. Made money. Stopped making money. Worked too much. Stopped working almost entirely for a while. Fell in love. Walked away from people I loved. Became a hermit. Trusted the wrong people. Ignored my intuition. Followed it. Changed my mind. Changed direction. Questioned everything I thought I knew.

Last year, I spent my birthday largely alone. I had disconnected so completely from my previous life that almost nobody from it remembered.

It got me thinking about why we feel entitled to anyone's attention on this particular day.

Why should someone remembering this date be evidence that they love us? Why should someone forgetting it mean that they don't?

There are 364 other days in the year to call someone, think about them, show up for them, tell them you love them, send them something that reminded you of them, sit with them when life is difficult, celebrate something they created, or simply ask, "how are you, really?"

Being remembered is not the same thing as being loved.

Today, I don't have the circle of lifelong friends we're told we're supposed to have by 30. I don't have a "special someone." I don't have the perfectly assembled adult life.

I have my mom, my dad, my sister, people I love tremendously, a heart that somehow keeps getting more open rather than more closed, and the strange certainty that there are still so many people I haven't met yet.

My tribe is somewhere out there.

So are places I haven't seen, conversations I haven't had, things I haven't built, versions of myself I haven't met.

That feels like abundance to me.

Today, I wanted to give the day a little more meaning by taking some time to reflect on what I've learned in my 30 years of being alive, even though I keep joking that I'm just turning 20. haha

So here are 30 things I learned in my twenties:

I have absolutely no idea what my thirties are going to look like. I just want to leave them more loving, more curious, more courageous and more alive than I entered them. That feels like enough of a plan, keeping my mind, my heart and my eyes open to the infinite love of the universe to send me magical signs and follow my integri