I Think I'm Ready For My 30s. Almost.

Follow The Calling

Jan 25

I am one week away from turning 30.

A few months ago, I wrote a piece about “What Turning 30 Means To Me” and a few people wished me happy birthday in the comments on social media, assuming that it was my birthday already. The piece was actually months before my birthday, February 2, but I’ve been thinking about my 30’s for a while. Ever since I turned 29 last year.

Eleven months later, I’m really glad I started contemplating my thirties early because I think I’m ready now.

Just about ready.

Yes, I made a paper boat and sent it down the river as a way of letting go of my twenties. :)

Making Space for Mourning and Grief

As I’ve thought back to the life I lived in my 20’s, I’ve mourned what is no longer.

For three months, I worked with scuba diving instructors in East Africa. I could have stayed in that life, become a scuba diving instructor and spent a few years travelling the world that way. I spent three months teaching English in Italy. I could have followed that route and spent a few years teaching English abroad. I could have backpacked through Africa longer. I could have worked at the retreat center in Hawaii longer. I could have made videos in Portugal longer.

There was a sense of freedom, of being wildly alive and awake that I experienced when I was travelling, and I miss it.

When I was active Periscope, I could livestream things that inspired and encouraging hundreds, even thousands of people per day. My life felt like it mattered.

The life I lived between age 20, my first trip to Italy, and 26, when I returned to Toronto, was filled flights, cuisine from around the world, and hundreds of kindred spirits who became like brothers and sisters to me.

In the last 12 months, as I’ve considered what my 30’s means to me, I’ve found myself wading through an ocean of despair.

What if what I experienced in my 20’s is the best it will get? What if it’s only downhill from here? I’ve had a few nights of falling asleep in tears.

I was afraid to touch these travel memories initially because they were shrouded in a sense of loss. I had lost something I loved.

Yet, when I learned how to write memoir essays in Guatemala in March 2020, I realized that this must be a sign from God to start excavating those gems and bringing them into the light. (None of those essays are published here yet, but possibly soon!)

So as I wrote and wrote, I also grieved and mourned, and celebrated. The dry ground of my soul was cracked open and a new seed for a new decade started to emerge.

Gratitude For The Journey

As I revisited memories from my 20’s, I also allowed myself to experience those memories as a good thing, not just a sad thing. Little by little, the grief transformed into gratitude.

Although on the outside, right now my life looks really normal and boring, I am totally different inside because of those years of travel. Travel instilled certain values in me, like generosity and courage, and awakened me to the endless possibilities in life. These are parts of myself that I cherish.

In the last year, I felt the need to look back and acknowledge who I was. She was beautiful. She was glorious. She was brave. And she still is. It looks different right now, but that Anita is still a part of me.

You are allowed to be who you were in your twenties, and you are allowed to become more, Anita.

What if it gets better? What if there is more?

The voice of God whispered into my heart.

Whenever the grief started to overwhelm me, I would listen to this little voice and wonder, could it be true?

Anchoring In The Good Here

As much as I miss my life travelling in my 20’s, the last three years of living in the city have shown me the gifts of living with routine, rhythm, and discipline.

It was like in my twenties, I flexed my freedom muscles. I flexed them everyday and I flexed hard. How far can I push my ability to live in different countries? How long can I enjoy summer before it gets boring? What would it be like to be totally free?

I lived without routines. I chased sunshine and tropical weather. I concocted whatever new projects I wanted to work on and executed them with a fury. (For perspective, when I got an office job, I realized that I used to do all the work that now a team of three people do. I worked relentlessly.) Every few months, I’d change up my whole life by moving to a new location. Nothing could tie me down.

Since being forced to stay in Toronto, I’ve learned things that I certainly couldn’t when I’m constantly moving.

I write thousands and thousands of words every week because I have a routine. Things I used to reject, like office jobs and commutes, I can now embrace. I’ve learned that I can embrace what is difficult. I can find beauty and meaning even in the ordinary. There has been a lot of good that’s come from living in the city and I acknowledge that it came at the expense of my life of travel.

I am not louder, but softer. I have fewer ideas, but they are sharper.

Perhaps the pendulum was swinging too far in the direction of freedom in my 20’s and Someone or Something, decided that I need to swing back the other way by bringing me back to the city. That is not such a bad thing.

Believing In The Good To Come

For me, turning 30 (which is really beginning my 31st year on earth) is significant because it’s not just another year. It’s a whole new chapter of my life. Last year, I wasn’t sure if I was ready for this new chapter, because my twenties were so good.

I needed to let my twenties be good, to bring the memories up from the basement, polish them up and let them reside in my heart as good things, precious things, instead of pushing them away out of sadness.

It was only by grieving, by allowing myself to feel the full weight of the loss, that I think I’ve been able to find true hope to continue.

It’s only by looking closing at what’s transpired in the last 10 years that I found a deep well of gratitude.

Now I am truly grateful for my years of travel… and I am truly grateful for these years in the city.

I am grateful for my twenties. I am grateful for all the people I’ve met, people who’ve helped me along in my journey.

I have an inbox card on my desk where I wrote this a few weeks ago: