8th March, 2025 - Today I turn 35. And there’s something profoundly humbling about standing here, on the quiet edge of this number, looking back at everything I thought would break me and realizing I’m still here. Still breathing. Still building. Still becoming. Birthdays have a way of forcing reflection, and this year, it feels like I’m sitting beside the smoldering embers of every version of myself I’ve outgrown—watching the smoke rise, feeling the heat, understanding at last why the fire was necessary.
There have been years when survival was the only goal. When getting through the day felt like lifting the weight of the world alone. When grief sat heavy on my chest, and uncertainty felt like the only thing I could count on. And yet, even then, some quiet, defiant part of me chose to stay. To try again. To whisper into the dark, “Not like this. Not yet.” I think of the girl I was at 25, chasing love and purpose and belonging like she was running out of time. I want to hold her hand and tell her that none of what she feared was ever as permanent as it felt. That some of the people she thought she couldn’t live without would leave, and she’d learn how to fill those spaces herself. That peace was never something to be found out there—it was something she’d have to create within.
This year, more than ever, I’m thinking about how much of life is about surrender. How the most powerful moments come not from control, but from the quiet bravery of letting go. Letting go of timelines. Of the versions of success the world hands us. Of needing to be understood. Of the ache to prove yourself constantly worthy. There’s a peace that comes with finally accepting that the only thing worth chasing is what sets your soul on fire—and realizing that most of those things are beautifully, achingly simple. A slow morning. A safe home. Work that feels like art. Laughter that echoes long after the moment has passed. The people who see you, really see you, and stay.
If you’d asked me years ago what I thought 35 would look like, I would have given you a list. A neat, perfect list of things I thought I needed to have figured out by now. But standing here today, I don’t want the list. I want the moments. The ordinary, sacred, messy, extraordinary moments that remind me how deeply alive I am. The ones that burn slow and stay long. The ones I almost missed while I was too busy looking ahead.
So here’s to the girl who never gave up on herself, even when the world gave her every reason to. Here’s to the woman she’s become—softer, wiser, braver. Here’s to the fires that forged her, the storms that shaped her, and the quiet mornings she now counts as miracles. Here’s to 35. To every scar and story and sunrise still waiting. To the next chapter. To the next breath. To the next ordinary, beautiful, blazing day.
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