Birthday, 2018

I had an empowering birthday this year, doing things I would never have imagined doing if I didn’t take the plunge. My mom would tell me stories of how I was the biggest scaredy-cat when I was younger. As a small girl, I was prone to crying at almost anything — as my mom famously tells it, I cried all the way through the “It’s a Small World” ride in Disneyland, which is the most sterile and mundane ride you can go on. I cried when in one of my earliest swimming lessons, the instructor decided it was a good idea to throw me into the pool without warning (it was not).

I think this is why I’ve always been fond of learning about anything and everything so much. I’ve always felt a compelling need to overcome the fear of the unknown, and just knowing things allows me to grasp reality in such a tangible way that I no longer felt untethered. In my endless research on all the interesting bits of life, I also learned to test my boundaries a lot.

Today, I see my path forward as a series of events that can only ever come about by being fearless and taking initiative. Some people tell me I’m confident, and that they wish they could be like that or that I’m an overbearing, arrogant ass; some people think I’m naive, because I posit that so many things are possible. Whatever the perception, with age comes a certain comfort of being present in the world, and knowing that you can be an agent to affect change, rather than a passive player letting change wash over you.

People who know me superficially seem to see me as relentlessly positive, which I’m obviously not 100% of the time. But I think I’m still able to channel that at my lowest points, and I don’t think it’s necessarily my personality or where I am at any given moment; it’s just a learned skill.

This is why I never stop believing that good things will happen, that positive change will come. Everyone can do it: learn, practice, and believe that there is always something better next on the horizon.

Tomorrow is a better day, and it’s already happening, because I made it so. ✨ see you there.