Hi lovely,
I hope that you’re having a happy and easy spring season.
Here is a letter that I wrote to myself on the day my birthday:
Dear Vesna,
I can’t believe you’re 50. It feels like the blink of an eye and it feels like time is passing by slowly. You’re surprised at how emotional you’re feeling and how much you’re thinking about your mortality. There’s a sense that you do not have as much time as you’d like. This realization is at once terrifying and liberating.
You’re filled with deep gratitude for your partner who has supported you and uplifted you through so many chapters of your story. You make a note to yourself to thank him more often. You can’t believe that you’re a mom to a kid who’s smart, sensitive, kind and loving. You never imagined that you would be able to recreate a family for yourself and give yourself the kind of love, safety and connection that you wish you’d received as a child. While you’re still angry at your parents sometimes the anger doesn’t consume you the way that it once did.
You’ve come so far. You’ve changed, evolved and grown so much, especially in the last year. You’ve shed some weight from the past, you no longer rely on meds to help you sleep and you’ve taken charge of your health in significant ways.
You can’t believe that you turned your life upside down and started a business when you were 45. You’re amazed at how your business is growing, thriving even. You have the most amazing clients who teach you more than you ever teach them. The fact that you make a difference in peoples’ lives is something that you never take for granted.
You’ve planned a dance party to celebrate your birthday and you’re amazed at how many people want to be there. Part of you wants to run away and hide from it all but you also realize that it’s important for you to take up space. Perhaps your days of playing small are finally behind you.
At times you wish that the feelings of depression and anxiety would disappear altogether, but you’ve gotten good at understanding that those moments are fleeting. You have a ton of tools at your disposal to help you ride the waves. If you’re feeling a certain way it’s probably because you’ve been paying attention. You are no longer interested in pretending to be happy. You allow yourself to cry and rage at the injustice of things.
You live in a beautiful neighbourhood in a cool city and you have built a beautiful community around you. There is nothing lacking. You want to continue to give yourself permission to just be as you move through life. You’re learning how to say no more often and listening to your instincts. You’re also learning how to rest. While you still have a kind and compassionate heart, it feels like you’re entering an era of less fuck-giving and it feels amazing.
You are connected to your ancestors and the ways in which they protect and uplift you. You’re interested in what older women have to say. It surprises you that you’re becoming a little witchy with age but you’re not mad about it.
You’re reminded of something that John Kim said about how our lives are in two phases. The sun phase and the moon phase. You like to think that the early years of your life were like the sun. You had so much energy. You felt like you were always chasing something. You were always reacting to things. The sun is heated. The second half of your life is the moon phase. The moon is calm. The moon knows things. The moon is interested in tides and energies, the ebb and flow of life. The moon attracts. The moon doesn’t chase.
You’re trying to not always be in the before and the after. There is only the during. More and more you realize that there is no arriving. You found a quote from Nisargadatta Maharaj recently and it speaks to you: “Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything. And between the two my life flows.”
While the future is uncertain it is also tinged with hope. You want to stay open to the magic. You want to keep dancing.
You are so loved. Keep bringing the light.
All heart,
Vesna
The love list:
Watching: Fight The Power: How Hip-Hop Changed the World
Reading: Bernadette Meyers’ list of journaling ideas
Listening: I made a playlist with favourite songs every year since 1973. Here it is on Apple music and Spotify.