Thirty, Flirty, and Vibing

I wrote this on my thirtieth birthday and it's been just over a month since then.
Things have been a liiiiiittle nuts since then. It's all butter, baby.
I'm Thirty, Flirty, and vibing. 

This morning I woke up to no alarm at 7am. I took a quick pee, made a cup of Earl Grey tea, did a quick at-home workout, closely followed by some yoga with a brand new instructor.  I took a shower, shaved my neck and cheeks, then got dressed for the day. I fried three egg whites and placed them on top of some hummus and leafy greens for an al fresco-style type of brunch situation. I squeezed a wedge of lemon on top and ate on the back patio, accompanied by at least ten of my plants, because it was so damn pleasant outside. My light brunch was accompanied by cold-brew green tea with a splash of almond milk. Since I consider today a holiday, I even splurged and put honey in my tea. I know, I'm getting wild.

I turned thirty this morning. Not one for numbers, I count it as simply another year I've evaded the Grimm Reaper, but this year hit differently. Thirty. Wow. It's almost as if I'm a "real adult". Another decade lived and experience gained. Trials I've gone through right alongside unexpected pleasantries. New friends, and old, all the while I'm slowly becoming a bit more okay with this bag of skin and bones I inhabit. 

I've never really celebrated my birthday too much. I've seen it as an arbitrary day that truly doesn't mean anything other than survival. I guess this one hit differently because, I don't know, it's been another decade?

A very dear friend told me last week that she can tell I'm more comfortable in my own skin, and I grabbed my love handles and said, "What, this old thing?" even though I couldn't agree more. 
Five-foot eight and three quarter inches tall, one hundred and thirty-two pounds (on a good day), bearded the majority of the time. Constantly tired, yet unable to sleep, I walk through my days, looking for the good things, like a nap or a snack. 

Last night I baked a cake. A simple yellow cake, delicately spiced with cinnamon, cardamom, and ginger. I frosted it with the crumb coat, and set it in the fridge to get a nice and thorough chill on it. 
I figure I'll finish it this afternoon at some point. 
Mostly oblivious, I was in the kitchen most of the day and evening while my roommates and neighbors(who are extended roommates) did their best to persuade me to take a bath, or sit down in my room.
"I'm not done yet, I've just got a couple more things to do", I said in a tired voice.
Much like my ghost will undoubtedly say. 

Last night after the cake was at a stopping point, I retired to my room and did what I realize has become a habit before anything big happens. I looked through the photo album my mom made for my eighteenth birthday. It's filled with pages of pictures from the day I was liberated from womb-dom, until a week or so before my eighteenth birthday. My my, the changes in between are quite stark.

There is something romantic and perfect about the past. It's already done and over with. Time has passed by and there's nothing to worry about except how you handled things, and how you could do them now if presented the same opportunity via time travel.
A certain familiarity and warmth surround the past. Well, some of it. Not so much warmth in the hard moments. Those tend to feel cold, and make my stomach turn upside down.
Like when the man I loved went an ocean away, only to return with another version of myself. That stings less now. More like I've just stepped on a small pebble, and less like my stomach is doing somersaults.  
Or how after traveling across the country in three days; I had to sit at the end of the driveway as I met my second niece for the first time and waved to her and her big sister. Again, small pebbles. But life is a road paved with pebbles and rocks. It stings and then it aches, but every now and then you find a small patch of grass and it soothes the aches for a bit. Maybe that's growth, or just growing up. Forgetting those things we've left behind, and pressing on to what's ahead.

Hard to believe I turned eighteen, twelve years ago.
Hell, it's hard to believe I turned twenty, ten years ago.

I barely remember what it was like to not be in my twenties. Before my twenties I was short-tempered, grasping at whatever felt normal because nothing was normal. Like everyone else, I was winging it. No guidance was given to me whatsoever, but as I watched other people and how they navigated through life with such ease; I wondered which handbook they had read that I hadn't. Which not only seemed unfair but also impossible.
As a child and young adult, I read everything. I'm trying to get better at reading nowadays. 
But I realize now, everyone is winging it, some of us are simply better at it than others. 
During my twenties, I was just lost. I moved nearly once every year, finding solace in the fact that I wasn't fulfilling the dream Society had for me of being married with a wife and 2.5 children at twenty-five, but simultaneously really wanting a boyfriend. I really wanted to be not only loved but known. 
Something that I still am reaching for, but I think it gets easier when you open yourself up to others. 

I mean, look at me. It's been over a year and I'm still trying to pick which night to consistently do a face mask, and how long I want to keep my beard, and yes, they are closely related. I want the largest skin-to-facemask ratio possible. 
No one knows. Maybe I'm losing it, maybe it's Maybelline. 

I learned a lot this past year.
My thirst for travel is deeper than I remember.
Sleep really is sacred to me.
If I don't work out I get more than a little anxious.
I really enjoy tomatoes, and I might be allergic to them? 
My Fiddle Leaf Figs are the most confounding things in my life. 
My favorite avocado toast has the influence of cilantro and pickled red onions as well as a fried egg. 
Park Hangs are my absolute favorite Hangs. 
My beard takes almost exactly 28 minutes to trim with my beard trimmer because she thiccc.
I think I'm in the best shape of my life?
I make my own rules and break them regularly. 
Working on yourself takes years, trust the process. 
I really freaking love making cakes.


So, I have this mirror in my bathroom. It has a hinge smack dab in the middle of it on either side so you can tilt it up and down. It's not nearly as glorious or discombobulating as those funhouse mirrors, but it can ever so slightly change your perspective.
Last summer I tilted the bottom up just an inch or so, and in that moment I realized it was time for me to stop looking down on myself.
I've done a lot of looking down on myself in the past. I'm just now embracing the awkwardness and silliness all tied up inside this brain. I was too self-conscious about what I ate, or how I acted, and I always felt I was too skinny. I think that also played into how when I was a kid my mom would buy husky-sized clothes when I wasn't given my brother's hand-me-downs. They, of course, made me look like I was swimming in clothing, which I also didn't complain about because you could see my ribs no matter how much I ate and that was even more embarrassing.
Don't even get me started on swim shirts.
Body positivity is a new thing for me. Honestly, positivity in general is new for me. 
I always used to pride myself about looking on the bright side of things, but never actually did. I found myself being my own Debbie Downer. 
The best thing I have done for myself in the past year has been therapy. I've wanted to for years, but I always had an excuse. Not enough money, or too busy. Any number of things to excuse myself from dealing with the issues that keep me up at night.
It's quiet at night. I liked that my head was screaming while everyone else was in bed. Something about the quiet evokes a memory of quiet nights in the Cape sitting outside by the pool before everything went to hell. A younger me, with no clue what was ahead, or how to deal with any of it.
I'm still bad at quiet nights. I'll have a glass of wine and cross-stitch. Or I watch Netflix to distract myself from the mess I've been. But I'm getting better. I'm working through it. But then again I always work through everything. I've been working my way through life up until this point. A work/life balance? 
What's that? 
How do I not work myself so much that I spend the entire weekend asleep? Oh, right because I'm not used to getting weekends. I haven't recently. With the job change, and trying to make back the money I lost working at my last job, it's been exhausting. But somehow, it's been the best decision I've made in years. Choosing to leave a toxic job? Saying 'no'? Standing up for myself? That's new.
Who's this new person? I don't know but I don't hate 'em. I'm even sort of proud of who I'm growing into. Maybe I'm not proud of this plant addiction, but hey, it's not drugs and it makes me feel like I'm living in a jungle and who doesn't want to live in a treehouse?

Also wow, the last year of my twenties was 2020.
That's something to process. 
What a dumpster fire of a year. But hey, at least we made it through. 
Isn't that all we can ask for?

My thirties have been good to me so far. That's all I can ask for.
Things don't stop being hard, but seeing the benefits of your hard work is cool. 

Be well, my friends. 

-T. Christian Scharf