Dear Amy at 30,
Well… we did it. We joke with Alex that we want to celebrate a birthday in our thirties at Club 33. It would be amazing to us if it was our 33 birthday, three years from now, but that seems a little cliché or typical. It is also quite unlikely that we will be able to find our way into Club 33 without how stringent the rules are now for members, but there is always a bit of hope for pixie dust.
It will be interesting to see what becomes of us: whether we are still in Kelowna, whether we are still pursuing the imagining career, whether we have a house, do we still read obituaries, do we still play video games, do we still waste too much money on trips to theme parks. I guess I have more questions for you than I have goals or recommendations for you. It is hard to know where we will be at thirty, but I hope that we are as happy or happier than we are now.
I can’t tell you who to be or what to achieve because only us in the present really knows what we are aiming for. We have goals, sure, but even those can change as we rediscover ourselves in different scenarios. The Amy who started to write these letters is not identical to the one I am now, and the Amy tomorrow will have learned something new to. It is never a bad thing to learn or want to learn and adapt, but don’t lose yourself in the process. Don’t lose us. Present Amy jokes about being “here for the woo” with the team, and hated the idea of being the token extrovert who isn’t necessarily good at anything else. Being the woo doesn’t mean that at all – it just means that we find it easier to be outgoing than others in similar situations. Don’t forget that.
I’m not afraid of thirty – in fact I’ve experienced loads of women in their thirties who have been just as much fun if not more fun than I am now. It’s just a number to signify your existence on this planet – it doesn’t define who we are or what we should have achieved. Here’s hoping we still get ID’d though when we feel the need to indulge in a bottle of White Zinfandel or Pinot Gris. Wine didn’t used to be our thing, but then again we did used to drink over our capacity in high school and then stopped after graduating to avoid becoming an alcoholic. Different ages, different perspectives, different variations of the same person: Amy.
This is starting to feel more like a wordy cliché bouquet than anything else, but it’s true. I look forward to seeing how and when we will grow next and I hope that we get to learn as much as possible before we are thirty and even afterwards. It’s been an odd month of writing to myself and I am sure that I would do it again dependent on the timeline. Do I feel like I know myself better? I don’t know. Do I feel like I’ve come to terms with more things, or things that I thought I had been over? Some wounds shouldn’t be reponeded, but those weren’t necessarily included either. See you in four years to spill all of my secrets and scenarios from growing up? Well, I will see you tomorrow, but rewriting memories and revisiting this concept later sounds good to me. Here’s to the next thirty. May they be adventurous.
-A
A. N. Stetzl 