One. Long. Lifetime.

“I know it seems like one long lifetime

But the sun is still bright and shining on you

Stay strong and just do what you do

Lose yourself in the music of your life

Then you’ll shine the brightest light

You own what you’ve got

Whether you hate it or not

All the pain inside

Amplified by

The woman surrounding you

But you burn brighter and higher

Look to the spirits

To find the lyrics

To the song of your soul

And then just let it roll

Its you and me and sunshine

Love to hear the wind chime

I’ll love the world standing beside you forever.”

I don’t know if it’s just me, or if I'm only part of a small fraction of women in America that feel the weight of the world on their shoulders at the age of thirty. It seems so cliché: “the lonely woman in her thirties desperately seeking the company of men to constantly fill a void of validity in herself.” (But I pause, and think: well perhaps it isn't the need to be validated, but perhaps the need to be seen and held securely by someone else so that you don't constantly feel like you have to battle the entire world alone…). This inherently patriarchal world paints single women in their thirties as desperate, pathetic women that are too much for men to handle and are therefore doomed to live a life filled with wondering what to do with our desperate bodies and minds… or at least that's how it makes us feel.

So, here I am - just a random weirdo who is going through her thirties trying to figure it all out. I don't particularly think that I am special or unique. I don't find myself to be particularly extraordinary. However, I have recently felt impulsed into writing down my thoughts and experiences. I have been experiencing a lot of growth, and primal moments within myself that are helping me to unpack certain events in my life that have negatively impacted my health. I figured, if my experience resonates or helps anyone in the world feel hope for themselves, then at least I can freely help people. 

There have been so many times in my life where I have felt insufficient or not good enough to accomplish big things. I have told myself things like: “you don’t look like the other pretty girls in school so you’re ugly”, or “you’re not smart enough, disciplined enough, or mature enough to ever be able to sustain a happy life.” I have had both men and women in my life doubt me, discard me, and dismiss my experiences. Therefore, my body and brain have naturally repeated these phrases to learn to be resilient. Being resilient is great; you can feel strong, proud, and fulfilled within yourself. It can also make you feel as though you constantly have a sense of pressure or weight pushing on you from within. Some resilient people thrive on this weight. They carry it like a badge of honour, parading around their accomplishments. But for me, learning to be resilient has felt heavy, like my body was constantly too heavy to move in. Psychologists today would most likely call this “weight” a symptom of depression and anxiety. 

Although, this sense of dualism pushes me to believe that the qualities of human-lived experiences that seem bi-polar actually play a large role in the creation of personal identity. Could it be true that a single event that happens in a person's life - whether good or bad or indifferent - will continuously shape and morph the person’s identity and how they will view and experience the world? Alas, this is the human way of life. The chemical digesting of external variables that creates reactions within our system to help us to adapt and survive. The fact that these reactions make us feel a certain way about ourselves is only natural. It's how we have learned to navigate, and explore, and live.

Take the poem in the beginning of this blog as an example. As I began to experiment with marijuana at the beginning of high school, I started having creative impulses to write poetry. I was using these moments and experiences to help myself to further filter traumas from my childhood. These poems were spilling out of me uncontrollably and as I read them back at thirty, while going through such a time of feeling unsure and finding myself, I think of these poems as letters to myself. You know, that quiet/loud, kind/mean voice in your head that torments you? This poems is a letter to THAT voice inside me. I live and experience my whole life with that voice. Every personal accomplishment, every temper tantrum, every friendship, and every breakup - that voice is experiencing life right alongside me. That voice is me, and, yeah I know, it's obvious that voice is mine. I firmly believe that so many people in the world go through life being slaves to their voice, being led blindly through life by it. A Buddhist monk would train their whole lives listening to their inner-voice and training it - being able to control their thoughts like they control what they wear everyday. But I'm no monk, and I'm not seeking spiritual enlightenment, I merely want to become friends with my voice.

“One Long Lifetime” was originally written during one of my THC induced trances. I had always felt such a heavy weight inside of me and never understood why it was there. Certain sentences in the poem, like, “all the pain inside, amplified by, the woman surrounding you”, speak to the female body and consciousness that I live in everyday that was feeding me negative thoughts and amplifying my own inner-agony. But, this poem is ultimately a letter of inspiration and motivation to myself. It is a letter of encouragement: I'm telling myself that I will always be there for myself - to hold myself in times of sadness, nurture the versions of myself that are wounded and healing, and celebrate myself in times of happiness. It's a promise to love myself in the sunshine and in the darkness. And honestly, it's a love letter. You know, the letter that the desperate 30 year old single woman has to write to herself to feel validated or seen? I’m telling you, it's far from desperate and pathetic. It's been the most empowering feeling to build trust within myself, and learn to love myself again. Somewhere between ages 7 and 13, most girls seem to listen more to what society demands of them in life, rather than learn to love and nurture who they are. Certain experiences shape our understanding of how society sees us, how men see us, and how we see ourselves. The more exposure to outside social elements, the more the body and brain do everything they can to survive and thrive. But for whatever reason, I have become more aware of my voice after turning thirty and living through one of the hardest years of my life. Another dualistic element: in order to build the version of yourself that you want to be, the old version of you has to die. After an extremely challenging year - moving to the UK alone for my Master’s degree, dealing with managing and the eventual discard of an abusive narcissistic partner, then moving back home after finishing my degree and feeling the most depressed, lost, and hopeless I had felt in a long time - it feels as though now everything isn't so hard. I get these flashes of images (visions) of moments of being happy in the future. A vision of the future fulfilled person that I someday want to become. But I am not going to get stuck waiting for this version of myself to show up. That’s what I have done in the past: waited for this version of myself to magically arrive in front of me, where I would subsequently embrace her and we would be consistently happy for the rest of our lives together. Although, my sisterly-savior never arrives, because I never got up to create her. 

So, this blog is about that process of becoming a better version of myself. I give myself the grace to have bad days, but I promise to show up for myself and go through hard things to become a more successful, more loving, and more compassionate version of myself. After all, what else am I going to do with my time?

H. V. Noakes