31 Years: Some Learnings
I recently celebrated my thirty-first birthday. Unlike other celebrations, this year’s came and went without much of a fuss. While there was a plethora of greatly appreciated well-wishes, hugs, and a few tender moments, it wasn’t like twenty-one or thirty. And that is okay, it was intentional in fact. Besides the all too busy work schedule making things nearly impossible to plan, I choice to take a more contemplative route with this year’s festivities as it felt different. Solemn, even. Over the last year I have been thinking deeply about who I am, where I have come from, and who I want to be. Have I lived a life of faithfullness and rigor? Have I been honest about my struggles and growing edges? Am I clearing a path to becoming a Good Ancestor? While there haven’t been too may “face-palm” moments that I can either think or have been made aware of over the course of my reflection, there are a few occasions where I sense a sincere desire within me to have done better. To have lived more fully. To have lived more freely. To have lived more rooted. To have lived more, dare I say, messily, not so confined as to color only within the lines.
As I thought back over the years, I gave myself over to a practice that I learned from dreamer, facilitator, and writer, adreinne maree brown. It is a practice where one makes note of learnings from past experiences: ones that come from hard-fought battles, gentle revelations, and sobering truths. Learnings that, while pertinent today, might serve as a form of truth-telling and gift-giving for your younger-self and future generations.
And so, with care and vulnerability, here are my thirty-one learnings:
· Amidst all of the things to do like work and simply tending to basic needs, our parents were just so afraid of being alone.
· When the Elders said “this is grown folx business,” they weren’t aiming to be mean, Beloved. They were doing what they could to protect your childhood from the nonsense of growing up.
· Now that you pay your own bills you understand what Aunt Mary and Grandma were saying when they told us “don’t be slamming my door” and “you either staying in or staying out, pick one, but it ain’t gonna be both.”
· Eat more hominy and okra. Your body is an altar for the Ancestors.
· Be tender with your own heart. And don’t be afraid to be happy.
· Welcome doubt occasionally, like a friend who comes for a weekend trip but leaves promptly after brunch on Sunday.
· It took turning 30 to understand why your Momma got excited for being carded at 50.
· You have a clear head, trust it.
· Stop looking for complications for the sake of things being complicated. Simplicity is its own blessing.
· REST in your knowings.
· Your journey isn’t necessarily about finding “your work,” it is more like doing what is at hand with intentionality.
· Moisturize & Hydrate often.
· Love springs forth in a variety of ways, and it takes a while to learn this, go at your own pace.
· Lean into the space between how you perceive yourself and how others experience you, there are many things there yet to be learned.
· There are worlds for which you create and destroy within your own mind, don’t be afraid to share them with the world you’re in now.
· Be bold in confessing that you have an idea about what you’re doing, how you’re doing it and where you’re going. And be just as bold in saying when you don’t have any idea at all.
· Love the slow moments, the setting sun and the rising moon.
· Being content, like an Elder casually gazing upon the horizon, can occur in a variety of ways.
· Create a home that serves you, and even future generations, now. Your younger self will find a joyful place there too.
· Being alone scares you just as much as it scares your parents.
· Costar was right, “don’t confuse intensity with intimacy.”
· Growing old is both a gift and a struggle, beautifully horrendous. What you feel in response to watching your Elders age is what they feel watching you age.
· Place yourself within the pantheon of the Ancestors, for your steadfastness is the same as theirs.
· Boundaries feel like dead ends for those who flourish most without them.
· Receive your own medicine, Beloved, let not fear be the director of what comes next.
· Travel for pleasure more, home comes and go with you. It’s not a ball and chain that should hold you back.
· You have already become so much of what you had once wished to be true, now dream some more. Don’t limit yourself for comfort’s sake.
· Authenticity is an ever changing pace. It is a mixture of this and that, then and now, today and tomorrow.
· God really does have jokes. Laugh along with Her. Tell Her what’s up when things are too much. And always remember, when She gets quiet, it’s because you are suppose to take the lead.
· Just breathe a little bit more. Give yourself a little more space. And don’t be so tight with giving grace to yourself either.
· Working magic is clarifying, gratifying, and healing. Do more of it. Work magic for magic’s sake.
