The One With The Reflections Of 38

I used to think that life was all about timing; those sliding-door nanoseconds when, if you miss one train, you completely and indefinitely alter the course of your life. I believed in this concept so much so that I named a chapter in my book after it; after the spiral mental staircase I would too often descend, musing about what my life would have been like if a butterfly on the other side of the world flapped its wings…

The thing about ‘ifs,’ however, is that they don’t really lead anywhere. 

And the thing about timing is…well…it doesn’t really exist. 

Not at least in the way we’ve been told to believe it does. 

And so, if I may ~ as the slightly older, slightly wiser version of me ~ revise my perception that life is about timing, and instead say that life is about moments. Sudden, fleeting moments when something cosmic occurs: a collision of atoms, a flash of lightning, a lunar eclipse. 

And what happens after these cosmic moments, depending on the subsequent actions or reactions, is that stories are created. The stories that shape us. The stories that inspire us. The stories that make up our long story of the soul. And these stories, they make us remember what it truly means to live; to simply be a part of this incomprehensible, yet magical, existence; to be here, right now, in this very moment, completely and utterly alive.

The year that was ~ my beautiful, transformative, ambivalent thirty-eight ~ gifted me many cosmically aligned moments: the good, the bad and the ugly-crying ones. It was a year that carried me into the deep, treacherous ocean while simultaneously reminding me that I wasn’t drowning. 

Because I was the ocean, I was both the raindrop and the sea, both river and tidal wave. 

My cosmic journey here once again revealed to me, thanks to the guidance of the Sacred, that I was still the storyteller, still the artist, still the mage. 

Somewhere in the midst of thirty-eight, I almost forgot this primordial knowing. Somewhere in the midst of thirty-eight, I almost forgot what my soul came here to do. 

And then one sweet Spring day, as the flannel flowers bloomed, I sat in my stillness, listening to the whispers of the winds, feeling the sunlight on my face, and I remembered. I remembered my power, my birthright to paint the brushstrokes of my life in my own colours, to write the words, to shift the narrative, and to believe that anything ~ anything ~ is possible.

There’s something quite enlightening about staring impermanence straight in the eyes and saying, “This is not the end of the story.” “This is not the end of my story.”

It is through this process that one can understand the timeless, cyclical nature of all that is. And that you and I, my friends, are an integral part of it. 

Though by now, we must know (at least those of us who have been gifted decades in this life) that the journey is not always easy; not always rainbows and butterflies. But nor is it permanent. One day you’re twenty-five, and the next you’re thirty-nine ~ and in the middle of that beautiful life live phenomenal stories of love, loss and bloom.  

There is a kind of melancholic solace in this knowing of impermanence ~ an inspiring message beneath those words that tells us, perhaps, all we can do is live wholly, throw all our cards in when there are no guarantees, get back up even when we feel like we’re irrepairably broken, speak our truth even when we open ourselves to judgement from others, and love fiercely with the kind of heart-led, expansive courage that can overcome anything. 

And that’s how the story of thirty-eight unfolded.

After all the unanticipated trials and tribulations, I committed to opening my heart to the world again. I committed to saying yes to this wild and wondrous ride. 

And in that process, I trusted that life was unfolding for me. I remembered that everything was a message, an invitation to choose how I would write the story. My story. I trusted in it all: in the knowing that what was meant for me would find me, as long as I remained open ~ open to believing in it, and open to receiving it. That is, after all, the way of the feminine. 

It was these remembrances that shaped my transformation this year and ultimately led me to begin writing the first pages of my next book, synchronously named Reclaim Your Power. There’s a deeper backstory I’ll share another time, but for now I’ll say this: it’s a book about remembering. About our divine connection to all that is, and the role we play in co-creating our big, beautiful lives.

You see, from a young age, so many of us are conditioned and institutionalised, moulded into a cookie-cutter version of a human that feeds the system we exist in. As soon as our creativity starts to form, we’re told who to be, what to say, and how to act. And before we can truly know ourselves, truly explore our uniqueness, we’re severed from our truest nature: that is, to dance wildly, to sing off-key, to laugh too loud, to be fully who we are, without apology or fear.

That was my story, at least. And I feel like I’ve spent the past twenty years unlearning all that I was taught to make space for the uninterrupted version of who I was becoming ~ without the rules and expectations, the should-do-s and the should-be-s. To simply access the same freedom the wildgrass has when it dances in the winds, the same permission the ocean has to be both gentle and fierce, mysterious and known.

I am her now: the wildgrass, the ocean and the sea. 

I walk toward thirty-nine feeling expansive. Anything feels possible. Although these last few weeks, beneath the solstice sun, I’ve felt the melancholic residue of a long life in suppression. A long life of wondering where I belong, where I felt safe enough to be fully and unapologetically me. Thinking this fear was my fault. Believing I was the one who didn’t have a home.

But now I see: home was always beneath my feet, where the wild things are, where love lives. She held me all along, our Mother. The Great Mother. And they almost made me forget, with their mind control and their manipulation and their unwavering efforts to keep me severed, until I wasn’t. Until the moon shone her light on the path of remembrance as the wolves howled their ancestral cry, guiding me back to where I came from. 

And so this lap around the sun, I am committed to finishing this book as a sacred offering for those also remembering, reclaiming and becoming.

Then, I will return home to a place waiting for me and to a person waiting for me. 

Because this year, I met him. 

In a cosmic moment, on the night of the lunar eclipse, he came to me. In a cosmic moment, the story became ours.

And it was magical because in this long, beautiful life, I’ve crossed paths with many who didn’t know how to hold my wild, expansive, uncontainable heart. And after all these years, I’ve met someone who does. Who sees me. All of me. And instead of trying to capture, control, or tame me, he simply stands beside me. Steady. Soft. Unwavering in his love. There are no reins. No cages. No stables. Just a presence that says, I’m here. I’ll always be here. Witnessing you. Loving you. In your vast, wild, sacred expression of femininity.

And this is the proof that dreams really do come true if we love ourselves enough to believe anything is possible.

So thank you, 38 ~ thank you for the lessons, thank you for the love, thank you for the growth, and thank you for the sunshine, as always.

May 39 bring courage, wisdom, new beginnings, peace, and the ability for all of us to be free.

🌻