I’m 30 years old today. I was born in Ghent, in Belgium, at 5 o’clock in the afternoon.
This recent time, I have been in an energetic shift. And that coincides perfectly with this change in age numbers. Even in our society today, it is considered a milestone. Although one with a different connotation than the one that I’m experiencing.
Let me tell you what I’ve come to know thus far.
I’ve learned that life is simultaneously a circle, a wave and a spiral. That things have beginnings, endings and endings that are beginnings. That things you think you’ve worked through, are bound to turn up again, right in your face, while your life spirals up and up and onwards.
I’ve learned that 30 is not the end of your dreams. That is just a lie, aimed to scare teenagers and 20 somethings. There was so much pressure, panic and anxiety in the last 20 years of my life, to have it figured out. To have a life plan before my golden years of youth were over.
We are told that it all goes downward from there. That your body will slowly start to fail and that the years of freedom are over. We are forced to make important decisions that will define the rest of our life. We are told to better have it all figured out, to find our goal in life and to go after it from now to forever.
But let me tell you now, to all those that are younger than me and all those that are older but have forgotten: All that pressure, it is a lie. Our society has made you afraid of growing older. As if the world only belongs to the young and the fresh. They made you believe that only spring holds all the beauty in the world.
Today, I do not wish to be younger and I do not wish to be older. 30 is where I stand in life. 30 is perfect for me today. I have done so much already, had so many experiences. I lived in Spain and in Iceland and I moved to Norway. I’ve met so many amazing people, had so many changes of perspective and learned so many things.
I married the best person in the world.
I have no regrets. There are no things I wished I did, but didn’t do. It might be a cliché, but you only regret the things you didn’t do. Not the things you did but failed at.
I have found the cure for feeling stuck. Because, so often in life, I have felt stuck. You only experience being stuck when you project things into the future. And you can relieve feeling stuck by releasing any expectations for tomorrow. Find what brings you joy and ease today. And give yourself all the freedom for tomorrow.
"Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be."
- Wayne W. Dyer
You’re allowed to change your mind. Changes in perspective are almost a promise in life. Own what you want today and give yourself the freedom of wanting something different tomorrow. You are meant to evolve. We don’t have to stick to anything.
I’ve learned to be honest with myself. To not be afraid to explore the darkness inside, to listen to the whispers. The whispers that are silenced by the world we live in, because they are seen as bad. I’ve learned to take responsibility, to take ownership of those voices that talk envy and shame and anger. I’ve learned to open the box of loving to play the victim, to find the actions that are inside and know that they are mine. I’m slowly learning to not blame the people and circumstances that negatively impacted me, but to look at my reactions instead.
I spend the first part of my life experiencing one side of the contrast that will define me this time around. I’ve delt with depression, AD(H)D, low body image and HSP my whole life. And I will continue to deal with these things for the rest of it. Even though I’m starting to understand that those personality conditions might be just reactions too.
I’ve spent a large part of my childhood being ashamed about the amount of money, time and effort it took my parents to raise me. Feeling so guilty about existing and being a burden to everyone around me. I remember being 15 years old, and thinking about suicide. Something almost nobody knows. Something still to be explored in my writings.
I have learned that there is a very big change that I do not want children. Maybe I change my mind, maybe not. But I’ll happily grow old without children of my own. I found peace in that.
I have learned that the things that I want, are often not what I really want or value. Sometimes it is more about the consequence of the opposite. I have learned that wants and needs have many layers and that even underneath the desire for freedom, lies the need for connection, for not being alone, for belonging.
It took me 30 years to learn what a boundary is. And I hope it doesn't take me another 30 years to learn how to implement it.
I have learned that I have not figured it out. And that I’ll probably never will. There are so many knots still to untie. So much power and freedom and creativity to unleash. I still don’t know how to, properly, connect the energy of money to my creativity and desires in life.
Once, I read that life has four seasons, that summer starts at 30, autumn at 60 and that winter starts at 90. And that all seasons are needed to equally balance life out. I refuse to life until 30 and prepare for retirement until 60. What if I live to 120? Will I spend half of my life in retirement, talking about my youth? Remember, that is not why we came to this earth.
Life is now. It is not a chase. It is not a verb. I am more than what I do. Life is a state. What I am and feel today, will come for me tomorrow. It took me 30 years to learn that today is all that matters. And I still catch myself forgetting it ever so often.
The 28th of November, 2021, was my first day of summer. I can’t wait to release the gold within.
My 30th birthday was a wonderful day. Spend with my family in the snow, surrounded by the mountains of Norway. I could not have been more perfect.
Thank you so much for flying all the way to North!