Recently, I was asked by a friend to help out some of her students in class. Her class this semester was about Food Literature and our relationships with food. The students read books like The Omnivore's Dilemma, which coincidentally was one I recommended to my friend years ago. The favor was to answer some questions about my own diet and relationship to food…

Anyway, I'm not really here to talk about what I do for my food and diet. My body has changed a lot in the past 10 years, but frankly, so have I. Talking to people 10 years younger than me was fascinating. Their concerns and pressures about their appearances were the same as mine were at that age. We shared concerns about what to do for college and how we dress. Honestly, some of those things I didn't really figure out, I sort of just fell into it. I’m also still trying to figure out a balance between atheleisure and dresses all day everyday. They also asked me about my job and how I got my job, my hobby, and sometimes I'm surprised I did.

I guess this was really more a reflection of what's happened in 10 years. I had my 10-year reunion last year. I'm turning 30 in less than a year. I'm changing the tagline on my blog home page haha. I haven't thought about what that's going to be yet. I still feel like I'm 24.

I used to think that you had to have your life figured out by 24. I mean, a lot of people do, my parents did, it was hard to think otherwise. You see lists like Forbes' 30 under 30 or articles about how people became a millionaire at 25 and just… So much around me told me that wasn’t true. When I listened to people’s stories, many of them were still finding themselves out of college. Some people didn't want use their degrees. Some people pivoted their lives completely. And I learned, all of those things were ok.

In the past 10 years, I've learned a lot about myself. I wish I kept a blog or journal more consistently just to see my progress. I've learned to be kinder to myself and let myself make mistakes. I learned that I needed to be clearer about what I wanted and needed from people. I also learned that my journey is separate from other people's journeys, and what was right for them wasn't always right for me.

I learned that I needed to do things my way.

It's not optional. I hate when people tell me what to do, and that really makes a difference in how I operate in my professional and private spaces. I remember when I was younger, I had teachers who told me to do my art a certain way. I understand maybe they were trying to get me to learn, but I didn't like it, and I fought them about it. Ha. I’ve learned that I’m feistier than I think. People didn't like me because of this. I learned that I wanted people to like me, but also that I didn't need them to. I'm lucky to have the friends and family that I do, because man, I'm hard to get to know.

Learning about myself was important because it helped me get what I wanted.

Recently, I've been hearing this term "manifesting" when talking about what you want. I guess some people could call it goal-setting too. Whatever you want to call it, the important thing is to know yourself. For me, knowing myself was essential to making the right decisions. I knew what to say no to, what to say yes to, what to push myself towards. I also figured out how I wanted to spend and protect my time. I didn't know these things in my early 20s, where what I wanted was vague. When I got older, I could speak words to what I wanted.

So yeah, I guess a lot has happened in 10 years. Talking to my friend's students just reminded me how young I was then and what that means for me now. I hope the students I spoke to remember that as they go on their own journeys’ too. It’s not easy, when there’s so much noise in the world. I hope find their own strength and joy within themselves. I want it for them, and I hope they’ll find it for themselves too.