Today, Iāve turned 30 years old.
Before todayā¦ I knew I wanted to, & was going to spend my birth date reflecting on my life thus far in its entirety.
At 30, a major lesson Iāve been learning & dissecting is how to deal with grief & how it comes.
How I initially intended to spend my 30th, did not come to fruition unfortunately.
I experienced a severe case of grief back in March of this year & at this point in the year, i am still dealing with the effects of it.
Despite the things I did do leading up to todayā¦ I wish I couldāve experienced parts of turning 30 with people I care about where I currently live (Virginia).
Outside of that, Iām nervous for what my 30s will present to me in terms of a work life, & my personal life. I want to flirt with the curiosities of my 30s. The what-ifs in their full capacity.
I want to discover more of who I am as a creative woman, & a lesbian who has fully embraced myself as one after trying to figure it out for 15 years, despite knowing at 14.
I want to fall in love with life. Thatās not really something Iāve done before or at least have felt like I came close to that feeling before.
I want to know myself inside & out, without someone shaping my experiences to where I feel as if I donāt know myself. I know myself, better than anyone else.
My intentions for turning 30, was for me to feel a sense of belonging. āBelongingā looked like safety, laughter, & closeness with people I care about. Friends I spent a significant amount of time with in my free time.
Especially after moving states away from what Iām used to, crafting friendships in my adulthood, & really just finding my footing with this adulting thing from Georgia to Virginia.
My late 20s have been heavily centered around exploring how I identify as a demisexual lesbian, building what feels like community to me away from home (Georgia), emotional vulnerability, rediscovering my creative identity through photography, cinematography, & graphic design, & trying to develop a life that I deserve for myself by the time Iām in my 40s & 50s that maybe I can even fit someone into later down the road, as well as other hidden parts of who I am as a person.
Trauma played a huge part in my 20s as well.
My grief took up space for a lot of those things, but I think the bigger picture is how I now choose to occupy those spaces at 30 for myself.
My 30s belong to the art Iāll make, how I identify as a lesbian, being gentle with myself, resting, healing, platonic relationships & the intimacy that comes with it, & a career change among a variety of other things.
I want to do everything that I want to do that brings me happiness without finding myself putting my emotional & mental state in the hands of someone who is making a tangible decision to feed my traumas back to me while knowing the negative impact those events had on me.
Turning 30 today doesnāt feel less special because I didnāt spend it with people I care about, but I think the special part is spending it with honesty.
Grief, growth, solitude, reciprocity, creativity, longing, yearning, all of those concepts I hope to genuinely discover through future interactions with people I havenāt met yet.
Moving forwardā¦ I just want to create & do well for myself in life, without feeling as if Iām solely surviving. Iām going to now allow myself the freedom to freely explore how I identify. I do not want to shrink myself to make someone else feel seen. I want to give myself a life of more peace, despite not having peace while dealing with my grief.
Hereās to good experiences in my 30s.
kianamaiart
turnnoffyourmind
origamiaround
