It took me 27 years to find my husband. We weren’t looking for each other, just happened to both be in Bali that night. It took me 32 years to gather enough courage to write my first book, and I spent all of last year sitting on the manuscript, terrified. I have no house, and still hope to have a family one day but at this rate life feels like it moves faster than I can manage.
“How are you feeling about your birthday?” one friend asks. It’s a loaded question.
I laugh and shrug, “oh you knowww…” Because I am not the only millennial with a life script that didn’t exactly go according to plan. And it is for that reason that I usually seek asylum each birthday in Sequoia National Park.
Trees form rings for every year they have been alive. It’s not an exact science but it is a great way to estimate the life of one of nature’s best. This redwood tree was unfortunately cut just decades ago in the 1950’s. It was still alive when my grandma was living it up in her 20s. Now I am in my 30s, older than she was, and I hope to never forget how small I am on the gorgeous scale of the Earth. We are so young, and this little breath we call life, so impossibly brief.
If I am lucky my life will still only be a hand’s length of rings against a seemingly infinite span of years. The parts we play are small, but we must play them well. We are all faced with that question Mary Oliver posed, “What will you do with your one wild life?”
So I say write the book. Mend the relationship before it’s too late. Do whatever you can to leave this world just a little better than you found it, because yes in tree years you are still adorably young, but in human years this whole ride is terribly brief.
If you would like to support my writing, please consider subscribing! We are gonna have such lovely little chats bestie!
My first collection of poetry is also still available for purchase.
And, spoilers ahead…my second collection is going to drop soon too!
I am going to make Substack my home base for a little bit (I will talk about why in my next post) but for now, if you are new, welcome, and if we have been writing friends for a minute, welcome back. You’re doing great lovebug.
Stay tender and stay true.
Warmest regards from the gutter,
Dakota Adan
Share this post