30 Before 30: Week One

About two months ago, fresh on the heels of a huge, life altering decision (which later proved to be a disaster; more on that later), I had this harebrained idea to complete a bucket list of sorts. This list would be thirty things that I wanted to accomplish or do before my thirtieth birthday, on January 6th, 2019. One year of tasks, centered around the idea that capping off my twenties with experiences and challenges would set the tone for my thirties moving forward. 

At the time, it felt like a way to capitalize on the momentum I'd gained from moving thirteen hundred miles away from home, a feat which made me feel brave, and cool, and unstuck from a self imposed limbo--a cavernous bubble of loneliness and disappointment in my personal and professional accomplishments up to this point in my life. I wanted more for myself. If you'd asked me a decade ago where I thought I would be by now, this wouldn't be it. I wanted to see the world and meet people and have unique experiences so that at some point in the future, the version of myself that doesn't yet exist would be able to look back with hubris and joy and a fondness for the person I became through those experiences. 

Friends, it is with deep shame and humility that I tell you how monumentally I fell from that pedestal. I'll give you the shortest version I can: moved very far away from home because I wanted to, determined to try my hand at something new. And after only a few short months, I had to come back to Colorado with my head in my hands, broke, jobless, and with a deep, unsettling depression in my bones. 

It is not without difficulty that I tell you this. To be frank, I debated not saying anything at all. What would my friends think? How would they look at me? In my head, the hushed whispers were of my utter failure, the secret judgments of which would never be brought to my attention. She came back after only a few months? How pathetic!

Logically and rationally I am aware that the likelihood of these words being cast is slim to none but it doesn't ease the fear in my heart. Call it a side effect of depression, the all encompassing numbness of feeling incapable and undeserving and worthless. But if I am anything, it is self aware. I am aware that forgetting to eat and sleeping all day and forgoing social contact is unhealthy. I am aware that being dishonest with others about my happiness is detrimental--why build up a false representation of  life? Maybe that, too, is a side effect of the social media age. We're all so petrified of looking anything but absolutely perfect and gloriously happy and covered from head to toe in abundant joy. 

With that said, I know I am flawed. That's life. We make mistakes and stumble and sometimes make the wrong choices but that's how it goes. I'm not saying that I'm jumping hoops about my life right now but what I am saying is I'm working on not completely hating myself in the process of recovery (for lack of a better term). 

Finally, here is my (yet to be completed) bucket list; more will be added soon: 
  • Take a pole dancing class
  • Learn how to knit
  • Make one complete knitted item (e.g. socks, scarf, pair of gloves)
  • Take a sewing class
  • Draft a dress/outfit for my thirtieth birthday
  • Run a 5K
  • Post one picture a week of my life to social media (it can't be of my dog!)
  • Refinish a piece of furniture
  • Attend a dance event
  • Watch all of the Star Wars movies
  • Read 12 new books
  • Stick to a Keto diet
  • Do some form of physical activity at least twice a week
  • Blog once weekly 
  • Make my own oboe reeds
  • Invest in quality lingerie 
  • Redo and downsize wardrobe
  • Put four digits in my checking/savings accounts
  • Get a tattoo
  • Donate to a charitable cause
Some of these goals are shared with my best friend Casey Sue, who is doing the "30 Before 30" with me. I am aiming for having this list completed by my birthday, this coming Saturday. If anyone has suggestions for things that I might be able to accomplish, please let me know as I need to have nine more things added to my list before then.

Friends, life is hard. And sometimes it sucks beyond the telling of it. But perhaps through this list and through the habit of confronting my own ideas about life and self image, I'll reach a point where that future version of myself can look back not with shame but with gratitude.

Much love.  

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