The Distance Between Who I Was and Who I’m Becoming: A Retrospective at 29

July 24, 2025. I turned 29.

Twenty-nine: a number that measures time in years, nothing more. And yet, I have lived through twenty-nine of them. Twenty-nine summers. Twenty-nine winters. Now I stand at the edge of another decade, on the cusp of a beginning that feels both familiar and foreign. A new stretch of time waits ahead, asking to be filled with memory, meaning, and mistakes I have not yet made.

Birthdays have always been strange for me. While others celebrate- turning the day into trips, parties, noise- I wake up with a knot in my stomach. An invisible weight settles on my shoulders, something I have never been able to name. Birthdays force me to look backward and forward at once, and that double gaze is exhausting.

Of course, I smile for the people who love me. I play my part, because my discomfort would trouble them, and I would rather carry it quietly. So I perform ease.

But beneath that exterior, something else unfolds.

Every year, it changes slightly.

This year, it began with gratitude. Gratitude for the people I have crossed paths with- those who are still here, and those who were here once. I am grateful for what they gave me, and for what they took away. Good or bad, all of it shaped me. I would not be this version of myself- sitting in my old room in my hometown, curled into a chair under dim red light, spilling my thoughts onto the internet- if not for every encounter that came before. Everything led me here, to this moment. For that, I am thankful to the universe, for allowing me to build a life of my own. My heart swells when I think of those who love me. I could ask for more, perhaps- but I do not want to. I feel no need to. I am grateful for what I was given. Thank you.

Gratitude, inevitably, made room for grief.

I thought of those I have lost- people now in a better place, and people who are still alive but no longer close. Every birthday, I make space for them. This year was no different. I revisited what once was, and the remembering overwhelmed me. My soul spilled out through my eyes.

What is grief, if not love persevering?

Marvel was right, I suppose.

Love without hands to hold it. Love with nowhere left to go.

I do not know if I want to let go of this grief. I am not even sure I can. It feels too intertwined with who I am. Over time, I have learned not to fight it, but to live alongside it- to give it shape, and limits, and room to breathe.

So, what next?

Life, inevitably, drifts toward material concerns. And, as usual, I flaked. This piece remained unfinished, its thoughts scattered by the wind of daily life.

Two months later, I returned to it.

A lot had changed. I started a new job- a new chapter. One I intend to honor, to excel at, or at the very least, to try harder than I have before.

Now, where was I?

Life. Twenty-nine years of it. Standing dangerously close to thirty. I have heard that thirty hits hard. I have seen it in my friends- the air around them shifts. Perhaps it is the realization that you cannot remain a “transitioning adult” forever. The decade of becoming ends, and the decade of being begins.

Or maybe it is society- the quiet but relentless pressure of how life should look by then. Not everyone has the privilege to escape it. We do so much for society, and I often wonder what it gives us in return. Acceptance? Validation? If you ask the elders, they might hesitate too. The “why” behind it all remains vague, wrapped in tradition and answered with a shrug: This is how it happens.

Does society love us? Does it care for us? Does it come to our rescue when we are drowning? These questions feel as vast and unresolved as the ocean. I am neither wise nor experienced enough to answer them.

And somewhere along the way, I lost my train of thought again.

Now it is Jan 1 2026. A new year begins. I am even closer to thirty.

So much of life is governed by chance- where we are born, when we are born, the family we are born into. These accidents of existence shape us profoundly. Even love leans heavily on chance: being in the right place at the right time, finding someone strange enough to match your strange. And when that happens, we name it love.

The more perspectives I look at, the more cautious I become. I once believed love was enough-enough to sustain a relationship through anything. Youth makes love feel simple, radiant. Literature, films, music, social media- they all romanticize it relentlessly. But once the infatuation fades and life enters the relationship, complexity reveals itself.

Love is not easy. Nothing worth having ever is.

To love someone is to accept both their light and their shadows. We speak endlessly about the good, but rarely about the bad. And lately, I have realized it goes further than that. You must also confront how your good and bad interact with theirs- how those pieces collide, clash, and sometimes wound.

It is a lot to hold.

Perhaps the first thirty years were only preparation for what remains. Because love comes at a cost, and marriage requires effort. Love is not easy and just because it feels good, doesn’t change the fact that there’s a price we have to pay.

And so, to life, I say - bring it on. It’s not as though I have anything better waiting.

There may be something beyond this, but I cannot tell when it will deem me worthy of arrival. Death calls now and then, a siren song drifting from the margins of my mind, whispering from the shadows. Until it makes itself known and takes me in, I am left with the simple, stubborn task of living.