I understand that time is an illusion and we exist in the past, present, and future all at once so all that really matters is just being A N D (&) STILL… turning 30 has been feeling very important for a long time. At 30 you have, in my opinion, lived a pretty significant amount of life. You have matured into a fully formed brain ideally for some time. You’re no longer an emerging adult to emerging adults, which is weird, and so now you have to navigate what it means to hover in this null space that is near older but not elder. I don’t mean any of this in a daunting way, I was never the person who was super anxious about it; and for better or for worse I can’t for the life of me fully remember the adolescent goals I set for myself at this time that I’m surely nowhere near or have completely abandoned. Actually, if anything I’ve been excited for my 30s. In grad school, I had a professor who straight up told us that the 30s are the best years of your life and honestly??? She had damn well better be right because them 20s?!?!?! I am thankful for the lessons and outcomes. I love who I am. But I am absolutely ready to move on to a new season of life. And now that I am here, in this moment, I do feel like it marks a level of presence and power (in me and in many of the folks around me) that is definitively unique.
For my 30th birthday I hosted an Adult Field Day. I had been talking about it for years. At my elementary school, during one of the last days of the year we would walk to our big neighborhood park and celebrate the transition to summer vacation and to the next school year. And as I stepped into what felt like the first real year of a present adulthood, I wanted to throw it back to when chasing joy was built into our days. The party was super fun. It also felt like this big culmination of who I am and what I’ve done in my life: I love event planning, I love my family and my friends and the community I’ve built, I love to move my body; there were a bunch of small touches and little flares that felt like representations of me and the people closest to me. And that was just the day! The weekend in its entirety was also filled with so much love. And the time since has been nothing short of stellar if not also world shaking. I got engaged (!) in Hawai’i (!) in a way that felt truly significant, surrounded by family. I gave a speech to my alma mater on diversity. I lost my job (again (it’s fine, we’ll talk about that at another point)). I took a really amazing (and reckless) and expensive trip to Greece with friends (found and otherwise family) . And it isn’t stopping. I am embracing that life is always pushing forward and you just need to find your stride.
This time has felt very filling (fulfilling and overwhelming at the same time). I’m a big processor. I do a lot of reflection. When people ask how I’m doing, I don’t like to answer passively or inauthentically. If you ask, I want to be able to tell you. And in taking up that practice, I noticed that I often don’t really know how I feel about things. They just ~feel~. In therapy, I often say that I feel full. In those moments, when I don’t know how to describe the complexity of my feelings and people ask how I’m doing, I am notorious for responding ‘we out here, you know?’ and people do know - because I have also noticed that other folks don’t really know how they feel either. There are so many feelings we’re all feeling at the same time and it can be difficult to organize them into an evaluation of self on the spur of the moment. I don’t think that’s always a bad thing by the way, we don’t always need to be able to perfectly say how we feel. But when we do need to, I like to know how. And for me, that is where the practice of reflection becomes essential.
Typically, I take some version or versions of the wellness wheel and rate how I feel about each aspect of my own wellness in that moment out of 10 and then write whatever comes to mind. I also love doing this with my partner - excuse me - fiancé****** and with friends as a way to check in. Anyhow, I did it recently. After everything that has been life. After 30. After surviving my radical awakening in the wake of capitalism. And then I sifted all that raw material down into eight (8) reflections about being a human and becoming a person at thirty years of age:
Everybody needs therapy
I spoke as a mental health professional for a panel once for a consulting role and I said that… ‘everybody needs therapy.’ I say it a lot. I had never thought it an abrasive statement. But another panelist tried to cover for the absolute manner of it by saying people should find something that works for them. And he’s right. They should. And also– they should go to therapy. So I said it again.
A week later, the CEO of the organization I was consulting for reached out to me to tell me that someone had contacted him saying that my assertion that everybody needs therapy ‘triggered them.’ He admonished me for doubling down on my point during the panel. He asked me how I would respond if I were him? I told him that if saying that everybody needs therapy during a panel on mental health in the workplace made a person triggered… they probably need therapy; and my response to them would simply be, ‘I would love to hear more about how my statement activated you. If you are open to talking more about it, please tell me more about the triggering feeling?” and then have a conversation. I also asked my boss that if I had said on that panel that everyone needs a primary care physician, would he have still brought this criticism to me? He said he hadn’t thought about it that way…
The larger point wasn’t completely lost though. I'm not trying to say that therapists are infallible, the healthcare system isn’t predatory, or that quality training and cultural competence is perfectly abundant. Some folks have terrible therapeutic experiences and that, naturally, turns them off. Some just simply don’t have access to therapy. And some do, but it’s not therapy that is going to meet them at their specific need at that time. A N D… this life is hard. There are systems and structures set up to make us hate ourselves, work until we have nothing left, and then die. We have an obligation to build a healthy relationship with every part of our identities (and just for the contrarians out there, having no relationship with an identity is/can-still-be a very intentional relationship) - and we need to do that in a space, with professionals (who meet our needs), dedicated to reflecting on, evaluating, and healing ourselves.
If you know me, you have heard this before, (and it might not be an anthropologically accurate re-telling of the evolution of medicine but bear with me as) you will definitely hear me say it again: Before dentistry was recognized as a practice, everybody had cavities. And everybody had cavities, because nobody was checking for cavities, and everybody was eating the same shit. And even if you ate perfectly your entire life, if you’d NEVER gone to the dentist, the first time you go - the dentist will have something to say. Your brain is an organ in your body that houses your emotional centers. And care for it is not written into our normal practices. Meanwhile, there is fundamental pain (big and small) in every childhood experience that can contribute directly to a loss of self. And only through discovering, embracing, and reframing our stories [in a safe intentional interpersonal space] can we recognize patterns of behavior and transform our history into tangible psychological, spiritual, emotional, AND physical healing.
Big shout out to my baby boy, Sean (my therapist), who I would not be coming into my 30s with this vim without. So yeah, I don’t if this list is exactly supposed to read as ‘advice’ but find therapy that works for you. You need it. [Note: Upon reflection (and revisions) it definitely reads like advice, but really I'm just tryna have conversations on/around these reflections and the beliefs that I'm developing in my adulthood fr. So, you know, do with that what you will, but I welcome new perspectives]
Also, ADDITIONALLY, to the earlier point (from the panel) –
Everyone needs to find a reflection practice that works for them too
I’m a big written word guy, obviously. As I already said, I journal a lot. I started journaling more intentionally actually because of my therapist in graduate school. I was barely holding it together, and my baby GWORL Sheila - a baddie - really saved my life. I managed so much overwhelm in her office and in her communion. But not all good things last. Grad school therapy is short term, and our time ran up. I was not ready to be alone and STRUGGLING to find a good replacement (Sean didn’t come until 2-3 years later and we had some MISSES in between). When we were wrapping up, she basically broke down how she helped me navigate issues in grad school into journaling prompts. We had boiled a lot of my anxiety down to my relationship with time and urgency. She had me start using a mantra that I would say three times to myself before I started my days and before I started my practice of reflection. Mine was to ground me when I felt like I wasn’t doing enough during times I would take to rest and just be – I would say, ‘You are not wasting your time. You are not wasting your time. You are not wasting your time.’ And then I would answer 5 questions that were ultimately how she helped me through each new struggle I brought to her:
What has happened recently?
How have I felt about this recently and how am I feeling about it now?
What am I avoiding and what is feeding that avoidance?
What am I struggling to accept?
Who do I need to connect with?
And every time when I felt overwhelmed, before I would talk to anyone, as if I was having another session with Sheila I would write a reflection using those questions. And then use that reflection to help guide me through what I did next, who I reached out to, etc… That practice has saved my life. And I change it up a lot these days (as I said, I’m into the wellness wheel right now) but that practice helped connect me to the need for consistent reflection especially now at 30, so that I can keep myself accountable to and remark on the ways that I must change as a person to better align with my intentions, and my understanding of myself.
You might not be a written word person but reflection is still a necessity. And in holding myself accountable and seeing the change in me, I have also come to realize that –
Resistance to change makes all forms of accountability look/feel like an attack
I don’t think anyone TRULY thinks they’re perfect. But we’re expected to be. So no one is above creating unhealthy expectations of themselves and reacting to things as if they believe that, at least in their purest most realized form, they are perfect. And a recent realization for me came from actually seeing the value of imperfection and embracing the reality that we are imperfect beings.
What I - and, in my opinion, many folks - really want… is to express myself and be at peace. And in order to do that I must be able to look at what is wrong with myself and with my environment and how those two things interact which will allow for me to create new ways and change behaviors so that I may live a fuller life. [This is a tangent, but a salient one, but it makes you look at phrases like ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ very differently. A. a lot of this shit is pretty broken lol. And more importantly. B. Change for the sake of change can be amazing (if you let it be).] If I want to find happiness and contentment, I am going to have to change - and perfection is resistant to change. It doesn’t encourage you to think creatively and innovate. It doesn’t hear critique or challenge. It doesn’t facilitate resolution. Those are the enemy of perfection because they are indicators of imperfection. Not being perfect becomes a lot more amazing when you realize that it means you are not beholden to staying the way that you are. It doesn’t become wrong to grow. And then reminders that you are worthy and capable of changing don’t become triggers of your lack of perfection, but instead they become agents of that change.
That’s not slight work though. Fighting back against that resistance is an alchemic effort. Your feelings and the feelings of the people around you become psychosomatic guides (and traps) on your pursuit of righteous expression and peacefulness. This change reaction is happening within your body and so you must be present in it. Which is why –
Building a healthy relationship with your body is essential
I have had asthma and eczema my whole life. In response to my eczema, it was always made clear to me that I had to pay a lot of attention to my body as it relates to my skin. Listening to signs of dryness as a reflection of my chemical state, which in turn is biofeedback from how I’m living my life. But it wasn’t until recently that I actually became present in that experimentation as an act of love and health conscientiousness for, with, and around my body. Recognizing that gave ritual to my eczema flare-ups as opportunities to communicate with my body and respond with lifestyle changes that served its healing.
In response to my asthma, however, I was never rooted in a healthy mindset about its relationship to my body like with my eczema. I would say that for most of my upbringing it felt like a handicap. A glaring weakness and set back in me as a person. It didn’t help that (given, you know, white European beauty standards and the hyper-masculine sexualization of Black men) I developed crippling body shame and self-doubt, it crept in from noticing the perceptions that others had of me as ‘soft’ in conjunction with being overweight during my formative hormonal years. In response, I created a barrier to pushing myself physically. I limited what I believed I was capable of based on how others saw me and related to my body and its abilities (or lack thereof). I’ve had my ups and downs with my body and with physical activity across the board throughout my life, but in September of 2019 I decided that I was going to turn myself into a runner. As of today, I’m realizing that I don’t even know what that goal means - if you asked folks around me, they might tell you I was a runner, but I still don’t feel it yet. Regardless. It was an amazing step for me to just start figuring out what I needed to move my body. What kind of routine did I want to follow? How do I pace myself? How do I measure growth? How do I translate failure into a communion with my body?
And then COVID happened. And unlike most, the ‘vid gave me a big thing that outweighed a lot of the bad. I got time back. My work commute at the time was 1.5-2hrs one way to Georgetown. While it was a campus with a gym, they didn’t offer reasonably priced gym memberships, so it was really hard to commit to any kind of fitness without inviting some level of burnout. But the pandemic and its subsequent lockdown gave me 4 hours back in each day, and I did not miss the opportunity. I have always had a well of energy inside me I thought that I couldn’t keep up with and slowly and (still) surely, I am building a body that can do what I have always wanted it to be able to do. I don’t think everybody needs to become “fit,” a loaded and -more often than not- shallow term. I think every person deserves the opportunity to discover the fullest potential of their body. But your own vision for your potential, rooted in your body’s desire to move and show love to itself. What made this particular “fitness journey” sustainable, was that it came in conjunction with a deeply reflective body love journey. And don’t get me wrong, I do like the way my body has changed in the process (though I struggle to admit it), but when it became less about that change and more about measuring growth across my ever-shifting passions for movement and pushing my body in fun and conscious ways; it became a forever journey.
What really matters is building a relationship with your body that is grounded in who you are and what you like and how you want to be. I’ve always liked to go for walks and zone out and listen to music. I’ve always liked to bounce and wave my body around. I stayed with Karate throughout all the years (albeit it more consistently some years than others), so I like to wiggle and fight and move. And I can do that better than I ever have now. And it continues to grow and change as I grow and change. And it’s been fun to invent and explore and invest in new ways to move my body and change my body purely (eh, mostly) in the service of that invention, exploration, and investment. I think we all deserve that.
But it’s hard. I never watched Bo Jack Horseman because I can’t really do the sad white-coded man thing (even though I know the show confronts it very intentionally). But I like that quote that goes,“It gets easier… you gotta do it everyday, that’s the hard part. But it does get easier.” I kicked this off talking about barriers to my ability to build this relationship with my body earlier. Access was a big one of those. I started my journey doing home workouts because of the coronavirus, yes, but also because it was what I could afford. But in the time since I have joined and left several gyms and even had a trainer. And so this next reflection is bit loaded but hear me out –
The point of money… is to spend it
I have terrible FOMO. Ooohhhhh it’s insufferable, it’s my least favorite quality about myself. 100% of my drain is because I have made embarrassingly minimal strides in learning how to say ‘no’ to people in my journey to 30. I just keep living recklessly and letting life reach a point where it demands it of me (and it has (and it always will baybee… oh it absolutely always will)). And the biggest consequence of being a social slut - is that it's expensive. And on top of that, I have plenty of debt (predatory student loan debt and also just broke bitch debt). So I am nobody’s financial advisor EL OH EL not never me. But at the end of the day… I have intentional relationships with people who aid and encourage in my daily (exhausting) pursuit of my deepest realized self sooooo going broke for the sake of quality time and acts of love with and for them and myself is worth it ~ E V E R Y T I M E ~.
Spend money on your wellness and the wellness of those around you (which is also an investment in your wellness). These rich white people will have you out here talking about hoarding money away for future generations and yes- we live in a society where saving money is extremely important from a safety standpoint; and from a generational standpoint it can be the difference between life and death, not even just access to opportunity. And ALSO I’m going to give to my people and myself here while I’m alive!!! I’m going to see them and us together in enjoyment and pleasure and luxury and happiness, every time I have just enough in my pockets. Every single time. Every- single- time- the opportunity arises. Because the point of money is to spend it. And if money is stopping you from enjoying something in your life. Be it a convenience that gives you space to be and breathe, or an opportunity for achievement and enjoyment, whatever it is… don’t let it. Spend the money to do/get the thing. You can and will figure it out. And in the process of generating new ways to facilitate this self-fulfilling behavior around gaining and giving (to yourself and others), remind yourself:
You can do the work you want and get paid well.
If it wasn’t clear from the grueling commute and lack of access to enriching amenities, Georgetown was also oppressively paying their student affairs employees. To be working with students across cultures with vastly different experiences and needs on a predominantly-white politically-active compact campus in the most inaccessible part of the District of Columbia (due to gentrification and gatekeeping) and to be constantly receiving pushback on gaining access to resources tailored to their care all the while barely making enough to pay your bills.. is an intolerable existence. Meanwhile, I found out during my time there that the Provost made sixteen times (16x) my pay (!!!)… and yet they weren’t offering raises because of COVID cuts… These (rich white) people are out here getting ran CHECQÚES. Okaye? Moneymoneymoneymoneymoney okayyyee? And then having the audacity to tell you that it's your coffee addiction that has you broke while they write theirs off as a business expense. And this is everywhere, mind you. When I left Georgetown and started working in the consulting space for DEI (which is not even the most lucrative of consulting spaces) and the figures on the invoices (!!!!!!!!) were not adding up to my monthly checks, I felt how higher education was just an echo of the other capitalist business industries. And while I am still, like many of us, fighting my way above water to float peacefully on my back, I hope we ALL know that our lungs and our bodies can survive the ascent and we WILL breathe easy when we get up under the sun.
There is money to be made out there. And folks will convince you that there is not so that you stop asking for it. Be aware of how many times you tell yourself you're not worth more than your paycheck, a better work environment, or everyday enjoyment and pleasure.
…
I am really struggling with rounding out my voice in this specific reflection because I don’t want it to feel like I’m talking frivolously about money. Money has been the biggest stress of my adult existence (and a really present part of my childhood and adolescent existence as well). On my wellness wheel reflections, it is always the lowest ranked. Always. So I want to be very clear here. Do what you have to do to pay your bills. Keep a budget. Do not harm others or abuse others with a lack of financial care. Be safe with your money. ~AND~ don’t let a scarcity mindset stop you from pushing for fulfillment from your career and paycheck (even if that fulfillment from the career is only the paycheck) and from taking advantage of this one life you have to live (because grandma told me getcho money Black man!!!)!
For me, it requires a lot of presence and reflection and forgiveness and acceptance to hold that balance. It requires sacrifice and making good use of the summonings that rise from it. It will make you move in ways that others may not understand. Commit to it still! And when, in order to sustain that commitment, you need to involve others in your process –
Communicate Authentically
The Netflix original show Sense8 by the Wachowskis was like my spiritual (and sexual) awakening. [I’ll definitely write about that at some point, it’s already on the list.] It’s all about connectivity. And I’m all about connectivity. Case. Point. Anyway, there is a line in the show, in reference to someones identity as a gay man, that says ‘labels are the opposite of understanding…’ and I sat with that… for a LONG time. Because - yes, AND they’re also the most important thing in the world in order for us to learn how to communicate healthily across difference within the socio-political structures we’ve created as an imperialist white supremacist hetero-patriarchal society. Which was kind of also the point of what they were saying in the show (debatably (and we will at some point*wink*)).
Labeling ourselves allows us to indicate that we have developed an understanding of our sense of expression around a particular identity. It is an act that (should (in the social culture we’ve created)) invite dialogue and create community by offering the opportunity to better understand those with whom we share relationships and operationally defining our labels across language. Because everyone doesn’t speak the same language. And I don’t mean English to Japedola. I mean word for word. What holds gravity to you, may not hold gravity to me, and there is no right answer. The most adult thing I have learned is that two opposing truths can exist at the same time and neither be wrong. This trickles down to the words we use to describe the world around us and ourselves. We use the foundational truth that all communication must be built from the ground up to stay aware of our biases by examining the culture that shapes our subconscious beliefs. You build ritual through navigating labels. You invent fantasy by expanding labels. Labels are a key part of communication. The labels aren’t the bad thing, it's the judgements we ascribe to them.
Remember that in loving communication emotional activation is not an invitation to react but an invitation to explore our own narrative. What wound has been revealed to me by a person's words or actions? What do I need in order to show love to this part of myself so that I might make way for more productive dialogue and illuminate new pathways forward that serve my best interest (and the interest of this person with whom I am sharing a connection)? When it is all said and done, we are relational beings y’all. We’re FEELING beings. The purest realization of ourselves is a deep entanglement with our narratives that results in actualizing our most authentic way of being by living out choices that are made free from the shame (externally and internally) imposed by our cancerous culture of erasure and suppression. We deserve to be within a system and in community with other loving beings that support the pursuit of that kind of intrapersonal fulfillment and that facilitate a life of enrichment, enjoyment, and rest against all the odds (and there are a fuck ton of odds).
But the culture we’re in is very far from that place. To shift the paradigm to be receptive to healing we have to get real about our experiences of trauma. If we are of community, then we must speak truth to that community. And to that point, we need to recognize that –
Relationships are relationships are relationships.
None are more important than the other. Not romantic love. Not the love of camaraderie. Not familial love. Not material love. Not spiritual love. Not erotic love. ALL of them require the same things to thrive: healthy communication, openness, vulnerability, intentionality, passion, and creativity. And you find and cultivate varying dimensions of those thriving characteristics across the umbrella of your relationships to create a rich network of love that facilitates healing and actualizing environments. This is the village that it takes when they say it takes a village. And you still (even at the big age of 30 (or bigger)) need the taking of a village. So as far as I’m concerned, the relationships that are willing to meet me at that level of commitment are the only ones worth my time.
I love, recklessly. I throw myself into others and let them throw themselves into me. I thrive in intimacy. I want a community free and unafraid of the worst parts of themselves because they know love here. I want to pour into the body of water around me and also drink from it. I have seen the magic it makes and it is so worth it. I am sure that we, as we are, are worthy of all that love has to offer, and I want those blessings. It is hard work. It’s a big investment that not everyone has the capacity for. But there is no real alternative.
And a small village is still a village. There’s totally reasonable rationales for being very intentional and selective with your community, but you still need community. And family is a comprehensive and layered term (that you also need to operationally define together). Needs get fulfilled in life by so many different people, and life has so many different needs... don’t cut yourself off from wealth of relating to others because of preconceived rules about how relationships are supposed to work. We’re more complex than that in every way. Be agile and progressive.
And most of all, this includes the depths of the relationship you have and develop with yourself (which you can discover, again, in therapy). There is an ancestral power in creating communion with your own process of becoming and assuring yourself of your potential. Which brings me to the final reflection –
Finding your pacing is everything
You know the whole ‘everybody has cavities’ motif from earlier? This became especially prevalent to me when I graduated college (undergrad) and everyone’s anxiety started to flare up. Over achievers used to being rewarded by the education system for succeeding were coming to terms with the significantly less rewards-based reality of “real life.” [I personally think because I was never an A+ student I had been preparing myself for it longer but the anxiety caught up to me eventually anyway. And maybe to that same point when I hit I was able to see it a bit more clearly than some of the peers around me… BUT ANYWAY] I’ve discovered though, that the low ringing buzz in the back of so many of our minds? The feeling that pushes you to do more because it knows what you’re capable of more despite your experience of burnout. It is the clean hum of your potential energy, capable of doing incredible things, grating against a high performance culture written into your psyche, screeching at you for having not yet reached the fullness of that potential yet (as if your power and timeline is finite).
Listen, the part of you that sings when you think of what you believe you can become. That part is enough without that dissonant judgemental voice clashing against it. And the beautiful thing about it, is that your mind is a part of your body. Sit with it, breathe through it, and release that contrarian. Slow down, and create distance from the dysregulatory internal and external voices in the choir of your being. Be creative enough to transpose your thoughts and actions into music better suited for your personal composition. Imposter syndrome will force you into a state of dysphoria before it allows you to listen to what your own potential is asking of you. Rebuke that demon, my G! And/or embrace them, even! If you are to be a fraud, aren’t you at least doing what you love? Then who cares?! Dance to the song if you like it.
I’ve recently felt like I’ve hit what I think is that optimum pacing for me, and so even as certain goals get pushed back because of new unforeseen obstacles, they feel even more attainable than they ever did. I am no longer judging myself for not having control when I am so sure of my passion, competence, and guiding principles. I am the steady migration of the elephant. I am in community. I am guided by stars and vibes. I am weathering desserts. I am appreciating spaces of rest and oasis. I am loving fully. I am moving without judgement. When I peer into the abyss, my reflection is a billow of clouds. He (me) is embracing the soft life baybeeeee.
That’s what 30 is.
Because, y’all, life is long. I want - at the very least - to enjoy it.