10,227 Days
10 lessons I had to learn the hard way in my first 10 years of adulting
I turn 28 this week.
28 years.
336 months.
1,461 weeks.
10,227 days.
245,448 hours.
14,726,880 minutes.
Time is such a funny thing. I don’t think I will ever grasp its ever changing pace. The way it moves through us and with us so fluidly and freely. How it can pass so quickly we barely notice, and then slow to an almost stop. This year has felt like a lifetime and a blink.
As I sit down to write this, I look up for just a moment at the early morning sky and see a hawk take flight from the neighbors tree and glide off into the horizon.
Some days, I feel like I’ve barely been here. Like I’m still a child and 28 years is a tiny and inconsequential fragment of time. I’m still learning how to be alive, still fumbling my way around adulthood.
But other days, I feel like I’ve always been here. Like my soul has known many lifetimes before this one. A part of me has always understood that while my life may seem small in the grand scope of things, the impact of my existence is immeasurable.
The butterfly effect.
Birthdays are tricky for me and have been for most of my life. Don’t get me wrong, I love to be celebrated. I love to be loved - I mean, who doesn’t? But there is something about leaving behind another year that always sort of breaks my heart. There is always a piece of me that wonders if I’ve done enough with my time. Have I lived enough in my years?
I’m one of those people who has always had a clear idea of what they want out of life. I was the type of kid who had my dreams mapped out, accomplishments planned year by year. But the more time I spend on this planet the more I’ve accepted that it almost never turns out how we expect it to. Often time it turns out so much better. Still, since turning 21, birthdays come too quickly. An unwelcome reminder of everything I still haven’t done.
The sun finally peaks up from behind the mountains. Its warm glow illuminating the yellow leaves barely clinging to the branches of my neighbors trees.
This year feels different.
Instead of anxiety, I feel acceptance.
Understanding.
A deep trust in the timing of my life.
This year feels different because it is. This year I finally don’t have to face the regret of ignoring my dreams. This year, I’m celebrating how it feels to live life on purpose. This year, I’m intentionally pursuing the things that set my soul on fire. This year, I’m learning to follow my intuition and trust deeply that life will carry me exactly to where I’m supposed to be.
I know I’m young. I can only hope that I still have decades left to live. But right now, I’m just thankful for the days I’ve already had. The chapters I’ve written and closed. I’m not so naive to think that a long life is guaranteed.
I’ve been a legal adult for 10 years now. A decade. A decade since I left home for college and the world told me I was ready to figure it out. A decade of fumbling my way through adulthood. A decade of terrible endings and beautiful beginnings. A decade of immense growth.
These 10 years have shown me that often, the most powerful lessons are taught to us in the hardest ways.
So in honor of my birthday this week, I’m sharing 10 things I’m thankful to know on the other side of this decade:
1. Belonging is an inside job.
If you want to feel like you belong anywhere or with anyone, you first must learn how to belong to yourself. Self love goes deeper than face masks and massages. It goes deeper than nourishing and moving your body. It goes deeper than reading the right books and listening to the best podcasts. True self love is facing the parts of ourselves we’re not proud of. It’s uncovering the pieces of self we’ve hidden from, and bringing them back into the light. We learn to belong when we radically accept the fullness of who we are.
2. Relationships are fluid and often, temporary.
As people change, so does the way we relate to them. There is no shame in moving on from friendships. There is no shame in dynamics shifting. Not everyone we meet is meant to stick around. Cherish the time you have with your people, and learn to move on with grace when your paths are no longer aligned. Sometimes the greatest form of love is letting go.
3. We are powerful creators of our own existence.
We manifest our lives from our subconscious beliefs. If we truly desire something, and believe that we are deserving of it—we can have it, but it takes some work to get there. It may not happen on your time, but if you keep stepping through the fears and letting go of the old stories, the life you’re dreaming of is as good as yours. We don’t get a say in how it all plays out, but we do play a part in the magic.
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4. Grief can be the greatest gift.
Loss hurts. I know that firsthand. It’s heavy and sharp and dark. Even years later, grief sometimes grips me the same way it did on the day I lost my stepdad. But I’m thankful to have felt the pain of loss. I’m thankful to be reminded of the fragility of life. I’m thankful to know that tomorrow is never promised. Grief broke me. It shattered me. But in picking up the pieces of my broken heart, I realized I was carrying so much more than I needed to. If we allow it, grief has the power to crack us open and show us where we aren’t living in our truth.
5. Nobody else can save you.
Nobody. Not the love of your life. Not your mother or your father. Not your best friend or your boss. Not your therapist. The only person who can save you, is you. You are the only one who can pull yourself out of a rock bottom. You are the only one who can leave the relationship, quit the job, get the help you need. Nobody is going to do it for you. You are the hero of your own life and you must find the will to change within yourself— even when it feels impossible.
6. Hating your body is a waste of precious time.
You only get one. Take care of it. Listen to it. Love it. Honor it. Nourish it. Move it. Embrace it. If you hate your body, changing it won’t fix that. No amount of diet or exercise or botox or filler will change the way you feel about yourself. You have to learn to love your body for what it does for you. You have to learn to see your body as the vessel it is, as the gift it is. Your body allows you to exist, here. To feel. To connect. To live. You can’t hate your body into one that you love.
7. If you think you deserve better, it’s probably because you do.
The right circumstances, the right relationships, the right people - will never make you feel less than. You do not have to put up with abuse or unkindness or toxicity. Ever. In any aspect of life. Maybe it’s all you’ve known, the kind of love that hurts. Maybe you were never shown the gentle and accepting and nurturing kind of love. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t your birthright. You are inherently deserving of a life and love that lights you up.
8. If it isn’t expanding you, it’s keeping you small.
We are here to grow. To learn. To evolve. To step into the truest and biggest versions of ourselves. If something, or someone, isn’t adding to this - they’re taking away from it. So often we get stuck in our comfort. We get stuck in what we’re good at and we get too scared to reach past the boundaries of what we know - but that’s exactly how we grow. Comfort and growth do not coexist.
9. Confidence isn’t stumbled upon, it’s built.
It’s not something you’re born with. It’s not something you simply fall into. True confidence is built from within. If you want confidence, you must choose it, and it’s not always the easy or comfortable choice to make. Confidence is a muscle that can be strengthened. It is cultivated through courage and radical self-acceptance. We find confidence when we begin making decisions from the place of the person we want to become.
10. Dreams are meaningless if you don’t take action.
You can know with every single cell in your body that your dreams are meant for you. You can have the vision board. You can visualize your future life every day. You can be convinced that it’s inevitable. But if you don’t work towards it, you won’t get it. The universe will clear a path, but you still have to take action. To listen to your intuition. To reach out and claim what has always been yours. You’ll never arrive if you don’t start walking.
On the cusp of my 25th birthday, I was deeply unhappy with my life. I’d always thought that by 25 I’d be married with kids, working towards a PhD. Instead, I felt trapped in an abusive relationship and stuck on a career path I’d never wanted.
I hit an unbearable rock bottom when I realized that if my life didn’t change drastically, I didn’t want to keep living it.
I started choosing myself like my life depended on it, because it did.
Now, on the cusp of my 28th birthday, my life is unrecognizable. I’m engaged to a man who protects my heart like his life depends on it. I’m a writer and I no longer hide from it. I’m here on Substack, I’m launching a business, and I’m finally ready to start writing the book that’s been stuck in my heart for years.
I’m living a life that little me would be so proud of.
Part of me always knew, or at least hoped, that I would get here. But in the heaviest moments, this life felt out of reach. Impossible.
We can’t always see it, the way life is guiding us home. When we’re in the midst of it, the pain feels purposeless, but I promise that it isn’t. The pain is showing us where we’re not living in our truth. The pain is pointing to the life we want but aren’t working towards. The pain is telling us that we don’t belong where we’re trying to stay. The pain is only ever trying to bring us back home to ourselves.
It took so much to get here, but damn does it feel good to have landed where I am. Not in a place where my life is perfect, but a place where my life feels true.
Love Always,
Krista Marie
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