30 lessons for 30

The lessons I will carry with me and how I learned them.

Milestones are an opportunity to take a deep breath and reflect on how far you've come. I, like many almost thirty-year-olds, spent hours asking myself what it would mean to pass the threshold of my twenties and enter a new era.

It's been presented to us as a hard line where you leave the messing-things-up self behind you and become an all-knowing, well-put-together grownup with an exercise regime, career, house, baby (or decidedly, no baby), you care about boring things like your credit score, cholesterol levels and how many hours you sleep at night. Gone are the days of reckless abandon and throwing yourself at a wall to see what sticks, your youth is gone and it's all downhill from here.

To counteract this societal message came the early millennials, whose words of wisdom were whispered in podcasts, books, and Instagram graphics that your thirties were everything you'd been waiting for. All the unlearning and learning you'd been doing would pay off and you'd find yourself thriving, you would most certainly be having the best time throwing dinner parties and pre-empting your hangovers by having a glass of water for every drink.

I have always been a person whose age never matched up with my personality or experiences. The perception from others was always that I must be older, wiser and more experienced than I was, but now I see that was because I was projecting that image. On the inside, I was drowning in imposter syndrome, worried they'd find out that I was making it up as I went along. I was drawn to having responsibilities that required maturity and understanding of how to hold space. This came from a genuine love for the work and I am so grateful for that time; it shaped me as a person.

However, some part of the drive I had to endlessly do “the most” was linked to my struggle with ‘being enough’. If I could prove it with my productivity, surely, I would be…and yet, the more you do, the more you start to expect. Nothing is ever good enough if you keep moving the parameters. I had told myself that there wasn't space for my dreams to write and travel because it wasn't the best use of my time. It didn’t matter that I had put in the hours to make it possible. Time was a pressure I couldn’t escape.

When I was a teenager, I struggled with the idea of the future. It was hard to believe I would be happy more than I was sad. School made no sense to me, but I had stories, and they gave me just enough hope to hold onto.

I fractured my skull when I was 19 at university. When I woke up in hospital, one of the first things they told me was how I had almost died. How lucky I was to be alive. For years, I carried a lot of shame and guilt that I didn’t feel lucky. I didn’t have the perspective at 19 to understand that. Was I grateful? Yes, for my family, but for myself? All I felt was loss. A day before I could do anything and now I had permanent hearing loss, a cast on my wrist and six months with a permanent headache and dizziness from moving. I was very fortunate to have the NHS to help me heal and live with the physical symptoms, but the mental symptoms didn’t seem to exist. So, I absorbed them.

When I turned 23, I looked at the night sky and asked it the same questions I'd had as a teenager. Was I not supposed to have figured some of this out by now? I’d done what I was supposed to do, completed the list: moved to London, got the dream job and lived with great friends, why was it still so hard to be happy? Fortunately, I told my best friend as well as the sky. She told me to go to therapy and for the first time, I was willing to try it. I filled out a horrendous form, got on a waiting list and eventually, it was my turn. During the waiting time, I had started to accept more of myself, so when I sat down in that little room, I was ready to talk. I found myself telling the story of the day I woke up in hospital with a fractured skull and by the end of my allotted six weeks, I had begun healing the part of me that blamed myself for the way my brain worked.

The day I turned 25 I realised I’d been wishing away my youth on some notion that I was just waiting to be a real adult and I felt this rush to be young. I booked all the tickets I would only be entitled to for cheap for one final year. I was growing rapidly in all areas of my life, I now lived with my partner and at work I was throwing myself into the deep end, guided by an incredible mentor who gave me opportunities to learn from my failures and believe in my voice.

A month after I turned 26, lockdown began, it was a lot for everyone, so I’ll skip this chapter’s challenges, except the one that is most relevant to these lessons; learning how to be with myself. I avoided spending time alone at all costs. I was one of those people who, when asked how they were, answered ‘busy’ like it was a state of being. The world was in crisis, my brain was melting and I couldn’t escape it. When it was possible to, I got on a waiting list again, this time for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. One day they called to ask if I would be willing to have a student counsellor. This was the best thing I ever did for myself. I am so grateful to the wonderful woman who guided me through what I call training. She paid attention to how I learned and gave me visual stories to understand what my brain was doing. It taught me to see anxiety not as who I was but as a thing I experienced. I still use these techniques today and believe fully that if our education system had a course led by trained counsellors delivering CBT through the years when our feelings are wild, it would save lives. It takes work; ultimately you have to be willing to apply it but we are not born with the weight of shame on our backs, it’s gathered. When you have enough of it, it feels welded to your skin. You can’t just shake it off, but with a great guide, you can peel it layer by layer, shedding into something new.

Post lockdown, I threw myself into life. I'd missed it and I missed the friends who I love so deeply. I wanted to do everything and I didn't want to lose any more time. I was desperate for change and so I made moves. I applied to do a short course in writing, and I booked a two-week trip to visit friends on the other side of the world, igniting the dormant flame to see the world and meet my people all over it. I learned to call myself a writer. I quit my job of 7 years because it was time and I had the opportunity to work with a new group of wonderful people. Next year was going to be my year.

On my 29th Birthday, my work threw me a surprise leaving party, which was entirely overwhelming and full of love. It was the greatest gift from my home away from home, my family and community. It was a place where you become yourself. I, like many of the young artists I had the joy of working with, had received its magic and it was time to follow my own advice, be brave and try something new. As I entered into a new era of myself, ready to transform, my dad who had been managing cancer for a few years suddenly became very sick, and everything changed.

When your dad dies at 29, you feel really young. You feel like a child because you are one. Your heart breaks for you and then little cracks branch off the break for every child you’ve ever met who lost a parent or never had one or didn’t have one that was there for them in the way they should have been, and then it fractures for all the children everywhere. You learn that love is a lot deeper than you can reach, but when you lose it, you can’t believe you didn’t see it before. It’s in the oxygen pumping through your blood and then you’re gasping for air, but in time you feel it again, it just travels differently now.

Grief taught me the lesson I'd been trying to learn for a long time. That life was for living. That gratitude and falling in love with life is the only antidote. When the worst and unimaginable happens, when time is taken from you and you see that the clock wasn’t running to measure how much you could achieve, but that all your seconds are precious. As I grieved, I found the question I kept returning to was: how do I want to spend my time?

I started letting go to make space for healing. It was and is scary every day. I have to actively reject the part of myself that wants to be productive and busy to prove my worth and choose the slow path to moving with intention. In the last moments, before I crossed the threshold of thirty, my partner and best friend asked what I wanted to do in the last seconds of being 29. “Nothing,” I said, “Just be here.”

As wholesome as that sounds, I was super extra about my birthday and have been celebrating it for the whole month because I am pursuing joy in every corner I can find and the people in my life are the most beautiful humans. Thank you for being my people, I love you.

As I move into this new phase of my life, I want to remember the lessons I learned during my twenties, celebrate the wins of this chapter and manifest my future time to be full of love, joy and discovery.

Here are my 30 lessons for 30.

1. A true friend can be old or new

    If their love is for the real you

2. Let your soul be so bright

    You become your own light

3. A loved one lost is not really gone

    Their spirit is in the water, earth, air and sun

4. If you make your life full of colour

    Every day can feel like summer

5. Don’t beat yourself up for a mistake

    It’s just a lesson you had to take

6. Kindness is free and your greatest gift

    If you offer it out, you’ll receive its lift

7. We are all creative when we feel free

    Find stillness and time to simply be

8. Savour each mouthful when you eat the good food

    Take a moment to be grateful for a happy mood

9. The best teachers you already know

    Be open to the wisdom that they sow

10. Music is medicine for the body and mind

      Watching it live makes you feel truly alive

11. Don’t apologise for your real tears

      It’s your journey to face your fears

12. Limitations are there to blind you

      You can do anything you put your mind to

13. Falling over all the time is kinda funny

      Don’t be embarrassed for being clumsy

14. Love your words on and off the page

      Don’t let self-criticism become a cage

15. Wash away the sad in long showers to feel better

      Write out feelings for healing in unsent letters

16. You can’t run from your fault lines

      Let them break open before you miss the signs

17. If you ever can’t see your own value

      Reach out to a friend for their point of view

18. Perfect is boring and striving for it will make you empty

      Outside of the lines, there is magic aplenty

19. Take pleasure in the home days in comfy clothes with cups of tea

      Breathe the air in deeply on windy walks on the sand by the sea

20. If you’re comfortable you can not grow

      Keep evolving to let your flowers show

21. Break the rules, dismantle the system, f*ck up the form

      - just because it exists doesn’t mean it’s the only way

22. Being Neurospicy makes the everyday a challenge, but you can do it. The lens you  see the world with is your superpower, keep believing in people, it is truly transformational.

23. Darling, you were born to stand out. So stand tall, be bright and joyful. Smile as much as possible, you never know when it could change someone’s day.

24. Fill your own cup first, so you can share the overflow.

25. Self-love is not about liking everything about yourself, it’s accepting your flaws and working on them, celebrating your unique qualities and enjoying the wins, it’s giving yourself grace, kindness and patience through the mess, the pain, the joy, the dreams forgotten and renewed. It’s talking back to the voice that tells you that you’re not enough to say- you are a work in progress and you deserve to take your time

26. If the shoes feel too small when you buy them, they will be too small when you wear them

27. Connection is the meaning of life, the meeting of souls is your greatest joy

28. Don’t buy house plants they are not your thing. Flowers are pretty and they are already dead so you can’t kill them

29. There are people all over the world who are your people. If you are lucky enough to find them, tell them how much you love them every chance you get

30. Everything is temporary, so explore, try things, see if they work out. Instead of trying to accomplish, get to know yourself. Life is for living. You’ll find your way.

With love,

Rachel