A Decade: Hey Queen, You Did SO Much!

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Decade: n. dek-eyd: a period of ten years       

“It’s not where you start – it’s how you finish.” 

Dear Self,

You did it. You came to see another decade pass in the world. 2020 is upon you. It went by in a flash it seemed. Although the hard times felt like they couldn’t pass quickly enough, you have much to be proud of in this span of time that you weren’t even adding up or paying attention to on any given day. You started 2010 in a spandex mini skirt and are closing 2020 in Mom-jeans, all the while clutching your sanity, learning from mistakes, and breaking the barriers to the best version of yo’ damn self! Hey Queen: You. Did. So. Much.

You kept learning.

Barely into your career, you obtained a Master’s degree in this decade. The career you started and loved, changed, drastically, so you bucked up your chin, and sought other fields, but never stopped valuing the learning you did along the way. A job shift in this era is normal – don’t forget that. Some days the things you had to “learn” were mistakes, from forcing things too aggressively in pursuit of dreams. Other days, you learned that YOU ARE CAPABLE OF DOING BRAVE THINGS, but Queen: YOU ARE HERE. YOU DID IT. 

You moved.

Your body changed, and yeah, 35 looks different than 25 on that booty ya got these days, but your body did UH-MAZING things. It ran two half-marathons, it hiked canyons and walked beaches. Your body started the decade in a nightclub and ended the decade clinking glasses in sweatpants with close friends. It packed (several) moving trucks, and unpacked its grief in therapy. It walked out on the wrong people and ran toward the saviors of your soul and heart. And it will keep walking out on the wrong people in the next decade. It gained 12 pounds, and lost 40, and gained back 22…you get the point. Some days your body won pizza-eating competitions; other days you recall gagging down some wheatgrass. But Queen: YOU ARE HERE. YOU MADE IT. YOUR BODY DID THIS.

Anne in 2009 (top), and 2019

You survived.

You cried in the car that one day in 2011 (okay, that one day in 2012, 2013, and 2014 too). You answered the phone to that call of bad news on a Tuesday in 2015. You awoke to the breaking news of a tragedy that hit too close to home in 2017. You had to rebuild. You had to reinvent. You had to make the best of dozens and dozens of bad situations or tough spots in ten years time – remember the time you thought you were GONNA DIE over a rejection post-job-interview, or that lost cell phone, or that break-up? You fell. You scabbed your heart, your ego, your chin. You put your crown back in place (maybe it took a few days or a pint of Ben & Jerry’s). But Queen: YOU LIVED THROUGH IT ALL.

You became YOU.

The setbacks, the successes, the tears, trials, and tribulations all brought you to a new era with each and every step of this ten-year journey. You loved people and lost them. You loved material things and realized they aren’t worth fretting over. You are a mom to a tiny human and have “mommed” animals too in these ten years. You threw out your tube tops and traded them for ball caps and cozy sweaters. You hated yourself at times, and only loved yourself enough to get by some days, but the you that exists today was born and bred from the you of every scrap of the last 3,650 days before this one. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, QUEEN. 

May the next ten years of your royal reign bring a kingdom of peace to your soul.