So Long, 20s!
I have friends that will plan a spontaneous trip to anywhere in the world and will actually book it, and not flake! That is something that I desperately craved in my early twenties. I have friends that send me handwritten letters, and even a friend who named me honorary auntie of her little girl.
-I have a job that provides me complete freedom, opportunities and surprises along with:
-financial freedom from debt, the stress that comes along with debt, and the ability to save and invest.
-An open, airy schedule that allows me to plan trips and even just days where I rent a car and drive to Hudson to meet friends for dinner mid-week, because I feel like seeing some greenery.
-The ability to say no to work opportunities that don’t seem up my ally, and focus on people and projects that spark excitement.
-The opportunity to meet people doing big things and small things, but all things that I find completely fascinating that widen my perspective and help me understand what makes people tick.
Continuing with these bullet points seems a bit endless because honestly, this job has granted me so many magical moments that it might as well be a magic wand!
As tomorrow is my birthday, and tomorrow is a Tuesday, I can’t help but think how lucky I am to have complete control of my day (ok, almost complete control. The forecast seems to be cloudy, and I haven’t figured out how to change that, [although I suppose I could hop a flight to Miami]) but my point is - instead of being chained to a desk - stressed about my performance or how many tasks I have to finish, tomorrow I’ll wake up, read this week’s New Yorker over a breakfast taco and a leisurely cup of cold brew in my sunny Manhattan apartment, work out with my gorgeous, funny, reliable, sweet friend Breya Lynn, have lunch on a terrace, get tipsy on afternoon champagne, get a lengthy massage, see some live comedy, play late night tennis, and fall asleep thirty, flirty and thriving - the way the rom-com 13 Going on 30 once told a younger me wasn’t possible without being a nasty, selfish workaholic. I must be a cat to have landed on my feet this way, but god damn does it feel good to be unafraid of what’s ahead of my 20s.
Thanks for being a part of it.
xxViv
Tomorrow at 9:17AM I turn 30.
I know, my Twitter maintains that my birthday is April 29th 1988, but I’m very excited about the fact that I’m turning 30, so as a tiny form of celebration I am airing the fact that for the past three years I have been lying about my age by one year and one day. (!) I am not turning 29, I am turning 30, and despite not being the most sentimental person you do or don’t know, I am feeling nostalgic, excited, and bittersweet, all at once. Maybe it’s the altitude, or the in-flight Bloody Mary (I’m writing this from a plane home from Austin.) but the milestone element has me reflecting on my life, and even though I’m not successful in the traditional sense of the word, I am beaming with pride at the life I’ve cobbled together.
Maybe pride is the wrong word, maybe it isn’t, but I have this warm glowy feeling in my chest that nearly makes me tear up when I think about just how great, fun, interesting, and unexpected things are.
I am not the most talented writer, and I tend to prefer lists over long-form rants, so here is a verbose list of what is making me feel so good at the moment:
-I have a pretty large constellation of friends all over the world made up of an incredible diverse mixture of people, most of their key features being: witty, friendly, kind, resourceful, independent, resilient , idealistic, adventurous, spontaneous, curious, well traveled…I’m sure there are lots of other wonderful adjectives I could list, but those seem to be at the center of the Venn diagram, and I’m so lucky that they are.
