39

Thoughts on my 39th year

To make space for my thoughts in words or even in solace and silence is the luxury that I did not realize I would yearn for in this time of my life.

Turning a year older gives you that gift — a moment to be (ideally) attuned to your being as part of this life, this world, and its people. I find myself trying to do more as I tick off that never-ending to-do list and it also includes that time to settle in and enjoy the luxury of just thinking, being, and writing. There’s no time for it than the time you have now. Because time feels even more sacred as you turn a year older and you become witness to the world get older, change, and shift into ways that can shock, devastate, and make you just damn sad sometimes.

I write for myself and for ways that allow words to kind of echo what it is that I really feel at the moment. I read past entries, and I laugh, cry, or cringe, but it takes me to a time where I find myself thinking whether I was lost, I have lost, and or that I am now experiencing sheer loss. It sounds sad when I write it that way, but I mean it in a way that is quite freeing. Loss creates that contrast of being able to also acknowledge what I have gained and choose to gain in this lifetime.

I have a separate journal entry that details more about now than, I guess, this substack will ever be able to express. But typing this gives off a different type of catharsis. One where you feel hopeful that somehow other people get to read it and it makes some form of impression. Or a way to share a part of myself into the ways of this very different world and this powerful chapter in my life.

So I’d share some of the things I put into my personal journal.

It’s not an easy time for me at all. There’s this place where I get to acknowledge this unique strength and resilience just from the sheer richness of experience brought about by motherhood; a hustling business-owning adult; a daughter and sister at this time with my parents in such a different stage of life; testing the frenzied waves of marriage and partnership; and from being able to really understand what it is to be selfless and selfish at the same time.

In my childhood and early adulthood, I don’t really recall any big dreams or visions of who I’d become as I approach my 40s.

But I also never realized I would be at a point where looking back and reminiscing is part of my daily life. I guess when you become a mom and you get to also experience this life with your kids and view the world in so many interesting ways, it takes you to places and makes you feel things not just with pure sentiment, but also in these powerful moving emotions that surprise and allow you to open up old wounds, reflect on the life you had, and find ways to reconcile with things you did not have control back then. Again, it sounds bleak, but there’s a lot of shifts in perspective. Over the decisions made for me by my parents. How different the world was back then. The joy over being able to still recall vivid core memories of certain moments that I feel have truly shaped who I am. I know it is a cliche statement hidden in prose that echo in self-serving speeches.

But as an adult, at this age, this statement takes on a meaning that feels transcendent. The road to self-awareness allows you to take responsibility for your healing. It also becomes one that kind of pushes you to understand the people around you as you try hard to come into terms with humanity in its fragile and flawed state. The world is just getting more complex and challenging and the people unravel in ways that will truly test you and the hats you wear and the weight you carry.

But… this life, at 39, is kind of amazing. It is real and it is one that I treasure. It is one where you feel like loving can be found in the most unusual depths of yourself and in ways that grow in places you never thought it would spring. On my 39th year on earth, I will continuously pray and wish for the same things, peace and clarity, and continued strength to love and choose love. Plus good health for my family, friends, and loved ones.

Happy birthday to me.

_{No AI was used here. Pls don’t write using AI. You know what I mean when I say “write” here.}