What I’ve Learned as an Almost 37 Year Old

Okay.

Here’s the honest version.

1. I don’t actually hate everyone… but I kind of have to start there.

I used to think I loved everyone.

Like really loved people.

But if I’m being honest, I was just overextending myself trying to be loved back.

I would give and give and give and then end up confused as fuck about where I stood.

So yeah... I started saying “I hate everyone.”

Not literally.

But it leveled the playing field.

No one is above me. No one automatically gets my trust and because of that, I stopped performing.

I don’t try to impress people the same way anymore.

I don’t twist myself into something just to be liked.

If someone crosses a boundary?

I leave.

That’s it.

And weirdly… that’s the most loving thing I’ve learned how to do.

2. Loving yourself is the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever learned to do.

Every book says:

“love yourself.”

Cool.

How?

I didn’t get it until I understood shame.

Like the difference between:

“I did something bad”

and

“I am bad.”

That second one?

That’s the one that sticks.

I realized I had basically been living my whole life from that place.

So I had to figure out how to undo it.

And honestly… the way I started was kind of insane.

I would look at myself in the mirror backstage during this musical I was in

and just repeat:

“I am enough.”

over and over

and over

and over again.

Not cute.

Not aesthetic.

Like… borderline losing it energy because I kind of was and I needed to change.

Slowly something cracked open.

Just a little.

It’s been like 13 years and I still have to come back to it sometimes.

Especially when something hurts.

Especially when a boy breaks my heart.

Especially when I forget who I am.

There’s no clean version of this.

It’s messy as hell.

BUT IT MATTERS.

3. Work should actually feel like something.

Find something you’re good at or something you want to be good at and go for it.

It’s hard.

It’s frustrating.

It’ll piss you off sometimes.

But it’s also one of the only things that feels genuinely rewarding.

And yeah sometimes that “work” is literally doing your taxes, which fucking suck.

But it still counts.

4. If you want to be brave, you will be scared.

I strongly believe there is no version of bravery without fear.

None.

You don’t wait until you feel ready.

You just go while you’re scared.

And this is the part I didn’t understand when I was younger, you find yourself in just one moment to answer the question of how brave you are once.

You answer it over and over and over again and that becomes the tapestry that your life gets woven into as you age.

Its like that line from Hamlet; to be or not to be that is the question. Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them.

That’s the question.

Every time things get hard.

Every time you want to quit.

Every time you want to celebrate with joy at the good things happening in your life while being terrified that joy will end.

Every time you’re tired of being tough this is the question you end up having to ask youself and then you get to decide you brave you are.

5. You have to be tougher than you want to be.

My beautiful ma, Melissa the Brave & Beautiful, always said, "you have to be tough to get through life."

And I didn’t get it when I was younger but I do now.

Life doesn’t stop being hard just because you’re tired or because you walked through one hell already.

You still have to get up.

You still have to try again.

You still have to keep going even when it feels pointless.

And honestly? I’m not even sure it’s worth it sometimes.

But the thing that keeps me moving is curiosity

like… what if something better is actually on the other side of this?

As "they" say if you’re in hell right now

Keep walking.

That’s the only way out.

It’ll be okay. Middle finger promise.