Thirty Things For Thirty
Its Leo season. And tomorrow, I turn Thirty. Its funny. I cried when I turned 19, because I was so scared over getting old. But with every birthday since then, it gets a little easier.
A couple years ago, I couldn’t even imagine being 30. I thought I was destined for a breakdown. And yet here I am, 1 day away, and honestly, I am feeling okay. I wouldn’t say I’m ecstatic. The thought of leaving my 20’s behind makes me a little sad.
So much growth happens in your twenties, with so many experiences of adulting being thrown your way, its the time of figuring out who we are and want we want and how to thrive away from the identity we found in the realm of high school and our family homes. It feels like by the end of our twenties, the time to experiment and explore who we are has come to an end.
By thirty we are just living in that existence we have made for ourselves. At least thats what I used to think.
At the beginning of my twenties, it felt like it would last forever.
Here I am, 29 and 364 days, and I promise you I still have so much more growth and exploring left to do. And I am perfectly okay with that. I am in such a different place right now than I could ever have imagined I would be even 2 years ago. I didn’t even know this was the life I wanted, filled with the beautiful humans and animals that have become so important to me, that I didnt even know existed until recently.
29 has been a year of so much beautiful change and growth for me. I went from being a single girl in the city, trotting down king west in the wee hours of the morning with an entourage of fellow 20’s era females. I was living in a 2 bedroom condo, making close friends of neighbours and roommates, and biking all over the city to attend pole classes, meet up on patios, and get myself to work.
It kind of felt like I was making up for lost time, since there was a good chunk of 5 years that was stolen from me by anorexia, where I was not able to go out and make new connections or live on my own, or take part in spontaneous adventures. I chose to wrap myself up in a relationship and anorexia, rather than to nurture other friendships in my life, or explore opportunities to make new ones.
So when I was 28 and more free than I had been ever before, I was able to do everything I had missed.
And in the process, I found myself staring my future in the eye, in the rain and neon lights of a music festival on Canada Day. (Thank you, electric island )
EI magic.
One year later, I am gone from my rented condo, and city girl life. I am in a serious and committed relationship with someone who makes me feel like I can be anything I want to be, and cares for me in a way that does not undercut my indepeendence. Now, we have just bought our first home together. We live in Barrie, which is so different than the buzz and business of Toronto, but a thriving and beautiful place that I am growing to love more and more each day.
Closing day!
When I found V —or we found each other—I was also adopted into his circle of friends which are more like family. We live in our house with 2 of them, and 2 pretty kitties, and the four (plus 2) of us function like a little family unit, and I feel like I am finally finding that sense of closeness and connection that I never managed to find for so many years in my early twenties.
Adventures with my adopted Barrie Family (and co-owners!)
I never predicted this for me. I never tried to make it happen. I had no plan to be a home owner, or in a serious committed relationship, or to be moved out of the city. But it happened, so organically and spontaneously, simply by being curious and going with my intuition and saying yes when it felt right, even if it scared me.
And I am so freaking happy that it did.
feeling good at my birthday dinner at B’Spoke bar in Barrie.
By the time you are reading this, I will officially be 30. All the pain and passion and growth of my 20’s will be behind me. But I am so ready for this decade to be full of NEW growth, and love and adventure as I navigate this new era of my life. I may officially be an adult, now in my third decade, but I am starting to realize learning and growth and exploration are things that don’t end no matter how old you get.
Never too old to marvel at a double rainbow after the rain
To make the most of my 30th year, and to keep my momentum going to continue to seek out growth and adventure, I made myself a little list.
Thirty things, of varying types and intensities that I want to experience and check off in this year of being Thirty. Some I hope to accomplish over these next few weeks of birthday celebrations, and the rest, to be pursued over time (for example, breaking 30 kilometres of hiking into more reasonable chunks).
a draft in my bullet journal of this list.
Heres to being thirty (not too) flirty, and thriving.
Which of these things are you putting on your list?
Love and light,
-Jae xoxo
Never too old to celebrate a birthday mini putting with goats
Thirty Things for Thirty
Hike 30 kilometres
Go pet camping OR hiking with the cat and the dog
Go on a wine tasting tour by bicycle
Go on a camping trip
Do a pole photo shoot
Make and perform a pole routine
Go horseback riding
Do a vaulting lesson
Get a facial and start a skin care routine
Do a contortion class
Go to a music festival
Go to a concert
Ride a bull at the Ranch
Spend a day at a spa
Eat at a Michelin-rated restaurant
Spend a few days in Montreal
Enjoy a bougie and boozey brunch
Go on a shopping spree
Do a bar or pub crawl
Go to Pursuit OCR
Go to a rooftop bar
Have a beach day
Take dance lessons
Have a paint night
Marie Kondo my room/wardrobe
Host or invite my parents to dinner
Get an astrological reading
Do a spontaneous adventure roadtrip
Have a cottage weekend with friends
Do some kind of walk/run/bike ride for charity
2022: A Year of Gains
2022 was a year I gained a lot. And I don’t just mean weight gains over the holidays. I am talking about the kind of mental, emotional, and yes, physical gains, that come when you open yourself to the opportunities that surround you.
This past year I have been gifted a lot of amazing experiences. I travelled (several times) to weddings, as well as a trip to Vegas.
I competed in my first pole competition for PSO Canada East.
I adopted a kitten who has become a well know adventure cat.
I got a permanent teaching position, raising me above the uncertainty of daily and long term occassional work, and into a new salary range.
I also made a new circle of friends within my Toronto neighbourhood, including neighbours in my building to share laughs and blunts and even keys with whenever we need a pet fed or walked.
And perhaps most noteably, I found a partner who is essentially the male version of myself, and who I love more than everything I love put together.
Truly, Ive had a lot of gains this year, as you can see. But it doesnt stop there. With all thuis happiness that has come my way, I also gained weight. I’m not going into numbers here, and I am not trying to make it seem as if I gained so much that I would be unrecognizeable on the street, but I will say certain clothes that fit me other Christmases would be a squeeze this year.
Sometimes I see a picture of myself or a video and feel a twinge of guilt that I’ve let my body go— even minimally. But the truth is, I really don’t think I could have had all the experiences and other life gains this year if I hadn’t.
This year, I truly commited myself to prioritizing connections and making memories over controlling my body. I made the choice to go out for drinks or to concerts and skip a workout. I made the choice to join in a group thai food order, or partake in a feast of indian food. I made the choice to ease up on my strict vegan tendencies and eat the muffin made with eggs, or try a bite of a a cheese stuffed ravioli.
I’m not saying that any of these things alone are the cause of a jump on a scale. I know friends and family members who enjoy all of the above on a regular basis, and their bodies stay pretty much the same. And I know continuing to be more relaxed around food, and joining in and sharing these meals and treats with others, I will not continue to gain weight for ever. Actually, I don’t think I’’ve really gained anything since I started writing this post a few weeks ago.
But even if I did, I wouldn’t regret it. The small, tight body that I had , particularly during my days of extreme restriction was a physical embodiment of my tight and rigid thinking. My life was about as full and voluptuous as my figure. In other words, the exact opposite. My days were calculated, measured, controlled.
And anything that threatened to disrupt that (such as a birthday dinner or night out) caused me anxiety and fear, instead of the excitement and revelry it should have.
Last January, I wrote a 2022 Manifesto for how I wanted to live my life. One of the things I wrote was “Memories over Calories.”
I’m so happy to say that I committed to that vision. And while it was not always easy or perfectly executed, I ended 2022 with more memories and moments of love and beauty and spontaneity than I could have imagined.
I’m hoping to gain even more in 2023. Here’s to making all the memories, joining in, and always prioritixing people and connection over numbers.
What are you hoping to gain this year?
Happy 2023,
-Jae
Growing versus Growing Up (Thoughts after 27 Years around the Sun)
This week I turned 27. It’s not a big milestone birthday, but in that way it almost feels more weighted. 27 is significant in how seamlessly I now classify as someone in their “late twenties.” There is little novelty and pomp around this birthday, the way it was around 21 or 25. Turning 27, I am not old by any means, but I am no longer “new” to adulthood. I am all grown up.
Except not really.
In a lot of ways, I feel brand new to this adult existence.
In terms of the place I am at and what I have accomplished so far in life, I am still young. I have friends who are the same age and yet not young in the same way, settled with partners sharing bedrooms, lives, mortgages, and even families. Friends with jobs that have benefits and yearly incomes, who talk about market prices in the city vs. the surrounding areas, and go furniture shopping not out of necessity but by choice.
It’s not that I feel unaccomplished or wish I was at that point in my life. If anything, I wish that I could remain in the fresh-out-of-school, finding-yourself-stage for a little while longer. I feel like I’m not done with my days of being untethered.
And I don’t mean in terms of relationships. I mean untethered to a single path or direction or vision of my life and way it is being shaped.
I got off to a late start in my adult life.
I spent the majority of my teens and early twenties with an eating disorder, which caused me to miss out on the kinds of connections and memories that can only come from spontaneous nights out that end drunk ordering pizza to someone’s apartment. And then entering recovery, I essentially surrendered my independence to my family and treatment team in order to get better.
So while all my friends were moving out and starting careers, I was on temporary leave, living in my childhood bedroom, on a strict recovery meal plan enforced and implemented by my parents. While other 24 year olds were updating their CVs and planning travel adventures, I was completing a daily meal log to be reviewed and approved by my therapist and dietician.
After two years of family-based treatment, I was finally healthy enough to step into my independence and grow into the next chapter of my life. So at 25, I moved out of my parents’ house for the first time and landed myself in a house full of roommates. I was doing things for the first time on my own, like shopping and paying for groceries, making rent each month, and washing my sheets. It was a learning curve, and a little unnerving.
I felt like an 18-year old off to my first year of college. Instead I was 25, with a new teaching contract with the Toronto school board, a masters degree, and a meal log.
I am only now at 27 starting to feel like I have found a bit of a rhythm in this adultness of life. I no longer go into whirls of anxiety over grocery shopping, or the idea of budgeting for household items like paper towel and toilet paper.
I pay my rent each month automatically a day before its due, and I recently took on my own phone bill too (thanks dad). I like coming home to my house of four roommates, flopping onto the couch with a glass of wine and lamenting about that guy I liked who turned out to be an asshole. I like having a contract teaching a certain grade at a certain school, with a definite start and end, because I like the idea that there is something different that comes after.
I still follow DJs and entertainment groups on instagram, because I am still holding out for another summer of music festivals and events, which I only got to taste in my eating disorder, and put on hold in my recovery.
Now I want to sink my teeth in.
However, I also feel the pull of solid ground beneath my feet, to find one centre of gravity. I’ve spent years floating, orbiting erratically, attached to many things but never something solid enough to keep me flying.
And this groundedness will NOT come from chasing highs at music festivals, a new fitness goal, or a living arrangement.
This groundedness will be found when I surrender to the process of accepting myself as I am, where I am, and where I am going.
I am 27. I am no lo longer a little girl, an angsty teen or a university student still “figuring it out.” I am a woman, strong and independent, who has been through enough of life to know what is worth pursuing and what to let go of in that greater pursuit.
I don’t need to force myself into a mold, or meet a certain deadline.
I don’t need to manipulate my body to look a certain way. Equating beauty to worth is unsustainable happiness. For even if I managed to get my body close to the standard I may have in my head, it will only be a short matter of time before gravity and the the sun take their toll and kick off the natural aging process that our society demonizes. And so, at 27, I am grateful for the health and youth of my body as it is right now.
I will live this year and the ones going forward without restricting myself in any way.
I am shifting the narrative-- rather than making my body my masterpiece, I will focus on making my life my masterpiece instead. My body is simply the instrument that will get me there.
A few years ago, I had no vision or understanding of my life beyond the moment I was in. Each day felt like a mountain I needed to scale, and it felt impossible to picture anything realistic beyond that. But now, the path I am travelling is infinitely less steep. I can see a little further ahead of me, and I can start to map it out a little.
I don’t need to pin down the exact route, or even specific destination, but I can at least choose a direction, and commit to the journey to get there.
I do not have any big concrete goals for this year, especially with all the external uncertainty at present (thanks covid!).
I am not expecting a permanent teaching job to come within my grasp, I am not planning some extravagant travel adventure, or even changing my relationship status.
I am not opposed to any of these things happening this year, but if they don’t, I will NOT feel like I’ve failed in any way.
Rather than make goals for the year, I am shifting my focus to the way I live every day. If I can go to bed every night feeling like I did the best I could to make the most of each moment that day, I’ll be making this year a smashing success. It’s the little steps, NOT the big leaps, to which I’m devoting my attention.
Ultimately, my goal for 27 is to make every day count.
I’m living for the journey, relishing the good parts of everyday, not postponing celebration for some elusive destination.
