Reflecting on Thirty-Three

Part One: Grief & Belief

Last year I wrote on Instagram, “I can’t wait to see what 33 is going to bring. Deep in my bones, I ✨know✨ it’s going to be ✨magic.✨”

And when I first reread that the other day, my initial response was that little huff we make that basically means, “yeah right.”

Then my brain said, “Sometimes magic doesn’t look like dreams coming true. Sometimes magic is alchemy—and sometimes we might look at the “during” of a transformative process and think nothing is happening or it’s all just a mess”—and that’s certainly what this past year has felt like. But the poetic part of me would like to believe that all the mess was more than just plans falling apart around me all year.

I still don’t have a clear vision of what’s going to happen in this next year of life, but for once I’m doing my best to simply surrender.

Getting divorced felt like watching the future I had planned disintegrate before my eyes and all of a sudden my future was blank. So I tried to plan and I really tried to do it right. I was patient with the process, I was willing to wait for the dream life I was envisioning. I spent months researching, I ordered my van, I contracted builders (we got to the point of signing the contract but had to wait because there was no arrival date yet for my van) and then 3 months ago I watched my new vision disintegrate around me once more.

For a while now I’ve been barely clinging to the shred of belief that I have everything in me to succeed—and I do believe that I do. But as I’ve been reflecting on why it feels like all the confidence I had gained has seemingly evaporated and why I’ve been operating from a space of doubt and shrinking myself again, I actually started to walk through everything that happened last year.

In the year that I deeply hoped would be the pay off for all the Really Hard Shit™ I went through in the few years before, instead I experienced more loss, unexpected difficulties spanning from health related to car related and beyond, and ultimately the falling apart of the dream that had been the light at the end of the tunnel that I had been clawing my way towards for over two years.

And because I’m constantly reminding myself of how lucky I am that it’s not anything worse, I hadn’t actually acknowledged or fully allowed myself to grieve all the new heartaches. I also realized that without fully knowing it, I had wrapped my self-worth and self-belief up inside both an arbitrary idea of what success in my first year of business would look like and in my van dream coming to fruition.

Arbitrary success. Arbitrary failure. None of it is real. What is real is that my worth and my value as a human are not dependent on how much money I make or if my goals are achieved or if I’m in a relationship or if my life looks the way other people think it should. It’s taken a minute, but I’m finally starting to remember that truth.

Part Two: Vision & Magic

Over the last year I’ve also come to embrace the truth that I often see things differently than the majority of people around me. It’s part of my magic, it’s part of what makes me a good coach, AND it’s often alienating.

When you see below the surface and read behavior that doesn’t always match words and can identify the nuance at play, you ultimately end up saying things that challenge people. Their beliefs, who they believe themselves to be, how they understand their world… and not everyone seeks out challenge the way I do. In my experience, most people would rather live in their shades of denial and disconnect, which said another way is in the safety of their comfort zone.

This creates a paradigm where I often have to choose between speaking my truth and silence. My life experience has led me to often choose silence. On the one hand I’m afraid to be wrong and there’s always the possibility that I am—although I’m usually not. And on the other, when I speak these things aloud, I’m often met with rejection, distance, and sometimes even loss of the connection with that person.

I’ve learned (and am still very much in the learning process of) how to ask if I may share a thought or observation to lessen the possibility of the negative consequences. And I’m also coming to accept the fact that it’s okay to be “too much” for most people.

The past year has also brought me some new (and deepened existing) beautiful friendships that have shown me what it’s like when people value the kind of perspective and vision and invitation to see things differently that I bring. I can’t even explain how life changing it is to be not just fully embraced but celebrated by people who see all of you and understand your magic.

This coming year I am leaning into my vision, even when I see what others may not. I am continuing to seek out the kind of connections that see me for who I am and lift me up. And I’m going to rebuild trust in my intuition and inexplicable knowings and remember that I don’t have to explain myself to anyone.

Part Three: Friendship

I wrote an essay for my Patreon sharing about my journey deconstructing my views around friendship and how our culture centralizes romantic connections and limits friendship. I’m beginning to see a shift, at least in the communities I’m a part of, towards reclaiming the value and importance and beauty of friendship, and recognizing how much more expansive it can be if we allow it.

I have a complicated personal “story” with friendship. As a child and teenager I was often left out, a fringe friend to friend groups and the people I was closest to always seemed to have other friends they were even closer to. For most of my life I was heartbroken by this and didn’t understand why I couldn’t seem to find a friend who wanted me as badly as I wanted them.

Over the last year I’ve also learned more about the layers of my neurodivergence and how that impacts my connections with others. You know that feeling that is a rush of both grief and sheer relief at finally understanding something? That’s how I’ve felt as I put the pieces together.

I can recognize now, the parts of me that make me an unconventional friend. Things I’ve always just shoved under the umbrella of being a “difficult” person or being too “weird” for people to want to be around. I get it now.

And, as I’ve shared these revelations with close friends, they’ve embraced me and reaffirmed their love. That has been a gift. I’ve also made new connections that have, from the beginning, seen me in the whole of who I am and lifted me up and absolutely poured encouragement over me in ways I’ve never fully experienced before and I can’t even explain how healing that has been.

Over the last couple of years I’ve lost a lot of connections. The fracturing of a marriage disintegrates more than just that one connection. Walking through grief enlightens you to who is willing to walk beside you and what it looks like when what you saw as friendship someone else saw as a transactional relationship based on your utility to them.

There’s a part of me over the last year (and honestly most of my life) that has believed there must be something wrong with me. That I’m too much weird and awkward and direct and not enough hang out all the time, gossip about others, and “it’s not that serious.”

Now I see things differently. I’m not for everyone. And, I know now what it’s like to have friendships that endure the messiness of life—that are full of grace, compassion, and mutual understanding that life is fucking complicated and we’re all doing our best. I know what it’s like to meet someone who from day one says, “hey, I see the magic in you” and then you just get to trade magic back and forth because you both believe in the same crazy big dreams.

Brené says true belonging is belonging to yourself because then, no matter where you go—you belong. This year I want to fiercely lean into what it means to belong to me. To know that I belong anywhere so long as I am grounded in who I am.

Part Four: Self-Discovery & Self-Doubt

I love to share openly because I believe it helps others feel seen and understood and less alone. There are also some things I believe are just for me, and the exploration into my neurodivergence is one of those as of now, but I would still like to share a little bit about what that has been like and how it has impacted me.

Reflecting on the past year, especially the loss of confidence, wouldn’t be complete without acknowledging the major role that journey has played. I understand so much now that I didn’t before. It’s both enlightening and frightening to have a new lens through which you can re-examine your entire life. It’s brought up memories, introduced crushing realizations, and been an invitation to practice more self-compassion than ever before.

For much of the past year it’s also made me question every interaction, doubt myself enough to delete whole posts, and paralyze me when it comes to being truly seen. It’s fucking exhausting to feel like you’re trying so hard to communicate and constantly feeling like it’s not connecting or you’ve chosen the wrong words or it’s all just too much for people.

At the heart of all of our insecurities is that same old fear of being both not enough of the “right” stuff and far too much of the “wrong” stuff.

This series was an exercise in allowing myself to be seen again. In trusting my voice to say what I mean and believe that it will land where it’s meant to. Thirty-three was a challenging year. If I’m being honest, every single year since 28 has been a difficult fucking year.

Moving to Maine two months ago, a place I had never stepped foot in before yet felt inexplicably drawn towards, has somehow felt like coming home. Maybe it’s getting to create a space that is all mine, maybe it’s the snow… but something feels different here. I feel different here. This entire time I have chosen to believe that all of the challenges are leading to something. Maybe I’ll discover what that is this year, maybe not.

I’m in the midst of an alchemical process. I’ve broken open a thousand times over the past several years and each time I’ve put myself back together and each time I’ve liked my new self even more.

I’m welcoming in 34 with open arms and an open heart. I can’t wait to see who I’ll become this year.