last week, i turned 28!
it was a busy week but i managed to carve out some time and celebrate with the people i love the most here in sf bay area.
i somehow reflected even more this week. i have so many thoughts that i need to first process before sharing! but one thing i wanted to share this week was my reflections on seasons and letting go
in the last two and a half years, i have had to let go of a lot of things— the stability that came with a corporate job. friendships that have run its course. the idea of what i thought life should be at twenty-seven, twenty-eight.
at every age, i always ask myself, what is a X year old supposed to be like? in this case, what is a twenty-eight year old supposed to be like?
i immediately thought about my parents who were about to have their second child at twenty-eight. my brother who got married at twenty-eight. my girlfriends who all want to find their person before twenty-eight.
i have had terrible luck with love, so even if i wanted to, settling down at twenty-eight wasn’t in the cards for me.
my hand was forced to let go of that notion.
there are so many things i thought i should have been at twenty-eight. so many ideas of what life was supposed to be like.
letting go of the idea of what life should look like was hard. letting go felt a lot like losing.
if i could describe the last two and a half years of my life in seasons, it felt like fall and winter.
i am not great at letting go (aries sun here), but i have learned that if something doesn’t feel right, you need to let go. even when it hurts in the moment, or even if what is on the other side isn’t clear yet.
in early march, i woke up and felt like the worst was over. i couldn’t explain why but i felt it deep in my bones that the worst days were behind me. since feeling that feeling, the last two months have unfolded in ways that have… way surpassed my expectations.
but a lot of the things couldn’t have unfolded the way they did if things hadn’t fallen apart in the first place, and if i hadn’t let go.
the point is to say, in life you need to know when to let go of things and especially of people.
when it comes to people, there are very few people in this world where you have a genuine deep connection with. the type of connection sprawls across years and life transitions. it is so precious. they are able to see you for who you are at your heart. it is raw. it is real. it can never go away.
to make space for these connections, you ought to let go of ones that serve as a placeholder. how do you know when you encounter this type of connection? the answer is intuition. something i will probably write about in future essays.
so what is a 28 year old supposed to look like?
in my case, a little reckless but always unafraid. tender-hearted but full of gumption.
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Such an inspiring post!
love the insights thank you joy for sharing !