Dear 30-Year-Old Me: You Survived, You Thrived, and You Made This Life Possible
A letter to my 30 year old self:
Girl you are heartbroken and reeling from the loss of a 9 year relationship and a family you thought you’d remain a part of.
You won’t be able to skip over the sad, but you are strong enough to know it will pass eventually.
You’ll latch onto friends.
You start exploring.
You’ll write your novel series frantically and create huge boards of the other world.
You’ll dive in hard to escape the pain, but the pain is inescapable.
You’ll dive into dating and hate it, absolutely hate it, but you’ll keep forcing yourself to online date. This will give you funny stories, but nothing substantial.
You’ll cry a lot.
You’ll laugh a lot and you’ll remember how fiercely independent and brave you are without a controlling partner.
You’ll have to face yourself. The verbal abuse you’ve internalized.
You’ll practice meditation, yoga, and get into personal training.
You will be unstoppable and you’ll feel defeated.
I wish you could see you from ten years later.
You made all of this possible.
You’re family, your children, your home in California 15 minutes from the ocean.
You believed,
you never gave up,
and this is your reality now.
The writing won’t go the way you planned, but life never goes as planned. You know this. If I could tell you anything it would be to let go of the writing dream. To let yourself breathe in the newness of each new adventure you were in and to take the pressure off of yourself to be the next JK Rowling.
It’s been a decade since your deep dive into your novel series and now someone else has published a book with the title you had.
We need a new title.
It might be another decade before we have time to return to that novel series because we chocked the life out of it.
The longer it sits, the calmer I feel knowing all of this happened for a reason.
One day maybe when my kids are teenagers I will go back to the magical world and I’ll trust it will be there stronger, clearer, and I’ll be ready to finish it.
Until then I’m writing and finishing up Mom Life Be Like or Mom Life Magic. I haven't decided on a title. I'm open to ideas.
30 year old self you are a bad ass and I wish you knew it.
So strong. So fierce. So dedicated. So courageous.
You step into endless unknowns and prepare us for what's ahead.
Thank you for being the adult I always knew we could be and for paving the way for this 40 year old woman to be the best mom, wife, functional movement coach and author that I can be.
Love always,
Danielle Mallett
