Tomorrow I'm 35.
The whole road in one birthday post – the years she was ashamed of, the one repeated wish, and the two words that broke the script.
She turns 35 tomorrow, and the post she gives herself is the whole road at once – including the parts she was ashamed to say out loud until now. The drinking years, being convenient for everybody, the belief that love could be caught and held by technique, and one wish written into every New Year and every birthday: LOVE.
The riddle in the middle is the one every book waved past her: love yourself first, don't search, it comes on its own – but how the hell do you actually do that? How do you stop wanting the thing you want most? Her answer wasn't an insight; it was a floor: either now, or I slide. Then the practices, the setbacks, the changed circle, the universe's test arriving as one more copy of the old script – and the two words that broke it: no, enough. Examples of Letting Go or Choosing collects situations with exactly this shape – the moment you have to tell which one is true: keep striving, or set it down. Her wanting of love was released not because it stopped mattering, but because holding it had become the obstacle. The no was the choosing.
She walks into 35 with no celebration planned, no expectations, no wishes – and calls it absolute happiness. The one wish finally came true by being set down.
Tomorrow I turn 35. And I am absolutely happy. But it wasn't always like this.
On the whole, until 30 I didn't really understand what was happening in my life. I drank my own self away, did wild things while drunk, died of hangover in the morning, burned with shame and blamed everyone around me. I didn't love myself inside or out, didn't know who I wanted to be, let everyone humiliate me and use me, and was, on the whole, convenient for everybody. And of course, the cherry on the cake – I thought that with sex I could make a man fall in love and marry me. I dreamed of getting married, badly wanted love, and simply devoured men. And honestly, for a long time I was too embarrassed to write this here, to say it out loud. But now the words are coming out of me on their own.
So, back to our sheep – or rather, to the former me. As I wrote above, life wasn't sweet, but I can't complain either – there were many wonderful moments. But there was no happiness. And every New Year and every birthday I made one wish – LOVE. I truly waited for it from a man, but after all the practices I understood that first it has to be in me, and then it will come from outside. I had read it in every book: "Love yourself first", "Don't search, it will come on its own" – but I could not understand how the hell you actually do that. How do you stop wanting the thing you want most in the world? And what surprised me even more: why, if you really want a car, you're supposed to want it and strive for it – but if you want love, it's exactly the other way around?
And in the moment I understood that my life was going in a circle: half a year at a job – then a change; a couple of months of dating – then that's it, booze + stupid decisions. The finale was a run in my underwear in front of bloggers' cameras. That's when I understood: that's it, we've arrived. Either now, or I slide all the way down. And that's how I came to the practices. At first everything seemed strange, charlatan-ish, silly, uninteresting. In the moment it was hard; there were setbacks and new waves. But gradually I began to change, the people around me changed, then the universe sent me a little test: yet another guy, the same script – and I said: "NO, ENOUGH." And, as I've already told you, right after that I met my husband – to whom, by the way, I also said no 😆 But that story I'll tell a little later.
So that's how I arrived at the point where I am now. With a loving, caring husband, my sweet bun of a daughter, in Switzerland. Absolutely happy, planning no celebration at all, with no expectations and no wishes, I will walk into my 35. And after that, I think, it gets even more interesting...
Thank you for reading.
If her words reached somewhere mine don't – good. That's what this blog is for. Take what fits and leave the rest.
– Jan