12.22.25 // 35

35.
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I am staunchly in my 30s. Not brushing up against them. Not “early thirties.”
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Rooted. Planted. Fully here.
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Today I turn 35, which feels both jarring and wildly humbling. Wow....what a privilege... AND....
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When I was younger, I thought people in their 30s had it figured out. That’s the story we’re told, right? That somewhere around 30, adulthood clicks into place. You know yourself. You make the big decisions. Marriage. Kids. Careers with titles that sound impressive when you say them out loud.
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Eight-year-old me pictured pencil skirts and business-class flights. Briefcases. Stilettos. A confident stride through life with a clear destination.
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Oh, how I would throw her for a loop.

No kids. One divorce. (All of the strife, none of the fairytale—no wedding, no honeymoon, no healthy, honest partnership to soften the edges.) A winding career path made of pivots and pauses and reinventions. Jobs that rose and fell faster than the tides. Opportunities that felt promising one moment and uncertain the next.
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I recognize that in recent years I’ve craved meaning over prestige. Flexibility over certainty. Creativity and strategy and work that feels alive—and I’ve landed, more often than not, in the beautiful chaos of not quite knowing.
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And yet....
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At 35, I know things younger me couldn’t have imagined. I know how to listen to my body (on some days.) I know how to start over even when it’s scary. I know how to hold joy and grief in the same breath. And I know now that clarity is not a finish line but a relationship that deepens when I am willing to listen to myself.
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I don’t have it all figured out. But, I have curiosity. I have resilience. I have a deep, quiet trust that I didn’t earn through ease, but through living.
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Mid thirties feels less like arrival and more like settling into who I am.
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Here’s to 35.