Friday and the 36th Birthday
A small, short post about time.
A week ago I turned 36.
Read my birthday post from last year:
This birthday felt harder than others—I’m over the 30’s hump and officially closer to 40 than 30. And while I know that shouldn’t mean anything, I’ve been having several existential thoughts and realizations about the number over the last few months.
People often say, “Age is just a number,” and while I believe that to some extent, age is still a marker of time passed. Time is unavoidable, and every calendar year marks another inevitable step closer to death.
I think death is hard for a lot of us to accept.
We do so much (myself included) to avoid greeting that final end. Aging takes on new meaning for me when I conceptualize it less in terms of what people will think of or expect from me and more in terms of the grief of having less time here.
Lately, this is what comes to mind: not that my skin is changing or that my bones feel stiff or that my hips hurt from sitting too long, but that with every passing year, I have fewer years left to experience life. And now that I finally want to live, that is the ultimate grief.
I’ve let myself feel that sudden sadness—that this will all end, that one day I’ll be gone, and so will all the people I love. And from that place I conjure gratitude. I muster up as much might as I can to love those people hard, right here, right now. To try new things and go new places and soak up every inch of what this life has to offer.
This, I’m learning, is the magic of aging: I’m discovering what really matters and holding it loosely, knowing one day it will all be gone, so to treasure it now while it’s here.
Thank you for being with me for another year around the sun. Writing has felt difficult lately, so thank you for bearing with me as I stretch these muscles again and find my flow. I’m so grateful you’re here.
All my love,
Rachel
Rachel Havekost is the bestselling author of “Where the River Flows,” “Write to Heal,” and “The Inner Child Journal.” Rachel has single-handedly built an online social media presence with a combined 300k+ individuals devoted to de-stigmatizing mental health. She uses her writing and social platforms to share her wisdom and experience from 19 years of therapy for her eating disorder recovery, suicidal depression, anxiety, trauma, and divorce.
To read the full story of my eating disorder and experience with depression and suicide, read my memoir “Where the River Flows.”
For more written work, guided journals, and education, head to www.rachelhavekost.com