#FridayReads – Finding Your Belonging
So I was just emailing with a group of girlfriends I studied abroad with in Madrid – we call ourselves the Madrileñas. We would get together on Sunday nights in Spain at this dark little wine bar in the Salamanca neighborhood; we'd drink red wine, smoke cigarettes, and laugh our asses off. I heart these ladies, big time, not only because they're brilliant, kind, gorgeous, and just all-around-lovely, but they're real, too.
I was telling them how 30 isn't at all what I expected it to be. I posted this quote on the blog a while ago, but I feel like it's worth sharing again because it's so pertinent to this post.
When I graduated college, I always thought 30 would be the year of “I HAVE IT FIGURED OUT AND I ALSO HAVE A MILLION DOLLARS.” I imagined 30 to be this glorious capstone to all the work I'd done in my twenties. I'd have the killer career I absolutely loved – and dominated – a penthouse apartment and a Mercedes. Maybe I'd have a boy toy, maybe I wouldn't, but the focus would always be on my amazing self-actualization – that amazing career.
Let's all take a moment to laugh at my ridiculous college-age self, shall we?
Turns out, 30 is yet another year of transition; another year that asks questions. Only this year, the questions are bigger and more meaningful. They keep me up at night. Maybe that's one of the things I needed to do in my twenties – just get there, get to the right questions, so one day (maybe when I'm 40?) I can find the right answers.
It's been a struggle to get over the fact that 30 is less a capstone of all the work I've done than a new beginning for all the work I've yet to do. That's a jagged little pill, y'all. I've come a long way from working on a trading floor to working on romance novels. Still, I always thought I'd feel more found than lost at 30. To quote my man Bono, “I still haven't found what I'm looking for”, and that is frustrating as hell.
That being said, some wonderful things have happened that weren't part of my 30-year-old-champagne-dreams. I met and married Ben, which has made my life a million times better than I ever thought it could be. Who wants a boy toy when you can have a guy that makes you laugh AND makes your dreams come true? I mean, he's a total face melter. Love you B.
Anyway. To bring this back to #FridayReads, I recently read Sue Monk Kidd's THE INVENTION OF WINGS, and hand to God, I cried like a baby.
It was exactly the book I needed to read this year – it's about vocation, finding your place in the world. I wanted to share a few quotes that really resonated with my 30-something self.
“It was the belonging I envied. She'd found her belonging.”
Another way of quoting Bono, if you will. This is exactly how I feel. I was watching FIXER UPPER the other day on HGTV (OMG if you haven't discovered this gem, please go watch it now), and I burst into tears. I was so insanely jealous of the cute couple on the show – not because they were so cute – but because they'd found their purpose. They found something they love to do, and they are really, really good at it. “I want that,” I remember thinking. “I want to feel that sense of pride and accomplishment knowing I found IT and I am slaying IT.” Plus Joanna has the best hair ever, amirite?
JOANNA I LOVE YOU!
“I longed for it in that excruciating way one has of romanticizing the life she didn't choose. But sitting here now, I knew if I'd accepted Israel's proposal, I would've regretted that, too. I'd chosen the regret I could live with best, that's all. I'd chosen the life I belonged to.”
God, Sue Monk Kidd is so, so good. She gets it. I think this summarizes one of the big struggles I'll face throughout my thirties – choosing the life I belong to. Finding it, then running with it.
“I pictured Lucretia and me in her little studio, talking and talking all those evenings. That fretful young women I'd been, so stalled, so worried she would never find her purpose. I wished I could go back and tell her it would turn out all right.”
This one is zinger. It was a shot to the heart, literally. I distinctly remember the tears streaking down my neck as I read it over and over again. This is what I needed to hear – that maybe in five years, or ten, I will have this same perspective. I will be able to tell my younger 30 year old self that “it would turn our all right.”
I highly recommend this book, whether or not you're experiencing existential angst. Go forth and read. And make sure you have an awesome group of friends, like my Madrileñas, to commiserate with, and support and love, you as you work to find your belonging.
Have a great weekend!