Lessons on 32

Hello, hello! This post is about six months late so please forgive me for the delay. I was going to let 2022 pass by without posting this but I just couldn’t do it so here we are. One day I’ll look back on this series and reflect on my growth and so I know that this is one of those “better late than never” situations. Without further wait then, here are the lessons I learned at 32.

Anything and everything can change in a year. I’m currently living this lesson actually! I received my letter of acceptance from Oxford in March of this year; my 32nd birthday was on May 5th. Oxford gave me a month to either accept or decline the offer, and exactly a month later I accepted. When I think about April 2021 I think of one of the saddest months of my life. I was sad, upset, confused, angry, and feeling rather hopeless about my life and future. Never could I have imagined what wonderful news would come a year later. And now here I am, writing this blogpost from my dorm room at the University of Oxford.

The second lesson I learned (the very hard way) is that you can fall in love again. While it may not look the same, that doesn’t mean that it won’t be just as magical in its own unique way. I’ve fallen in love far too many times to count- I wear my heart on my sleeve and always have. But certain loves leave deeper imprints in your soul, leaving you feeling like you’ll never feel that way again if things don’t work out. I can’t even begin to explain how much I understand that sentiment. Here’s the thing though: you will fall in love again, and it will feel just as beautiful again as being on cloud 9, smelling roses and skipping in the woods (if you’re into that sort of thing). I’m being a bit silly now but my point remains: it is always possible to love again.

That leaves us with the third and final lesson: it’s okay to still not know what the hell you’re doing with your life as long as you don’t give up and you keep trying to figure it out. Ever since I was a child I’ve had trouble envisioning what “my future looks like.” As a teenager and adult this settled into a feeling of extreme anxiety when asked what I wanted to do for a living and what my five or ten year plan was. I’m going to be very frank here: at 33 I still don’t have a 100% clear idea as to what I want to do with my life. But, here’s what I do know: I know exactly how I want my life to feel. Little by little the details have become clearer and I’m okay with that because of how my mind works. If I think ten or even five years out I get extremely stressed out, so instead I look at one or two years out and go from there. I get how this could be chaos to some, but ever since I started looking at it this way I’ve accomplished so much more than I previously had.

So there we have it: three lessons on 32. I really want to commit to writing weekly and so I’m going to aim to post again next Wednesday on three books I read in 2021 that I recommend.