Dancing in Between
On Starting My Next Chapter
When my mother and I arrived at The Ritz Carlton in Atlanta, a man greeted us in the check-in line and asked “would you like a glass of champagne while you wait?” “Yes, please!” We responded enthusiastically. After weeks of planning my birthday, hosting Christmas, babysitting for family on weekends, and dealing with last minute b-day drama, my mother and I most certainly needed a drink. After getting our room key at the front desk, we got on the gold elevator and ascended up to the 22nd floor. We headed straight to the couch after entering our hotel room; we smiled as our bodies sunk into plush upholstery — we had finally made it back.
The first time my mother and I stayed at The Ritz was on my twenty-third birthday. Just like now, we traveled from Chattanooga to Atlanta. On that birthday we celebrated by seeing 6lack in concert and we stayed at The Ritz because a friend of mine was able to get us a discount — the place certainly left an impression. If you’ve never been to The Ritz Carlton, it’s worth the money just to experience a level of service that actually makes you feel valued and welcomed (and I’m saying this as a Black woman so you know it’s real).
It’s interesting to think about where I was in life the last time I stayed at The Ritz. At twenty-three, I was living back in my hometown after four years of being all over the world at BU. I was living in my own apartment for the first time, working as a tax administrator at an accounting firm, dating a total fucking asshole, and spending too much time with the wrong friends. I was most certainly young, dumb, and lost back then.
I returned to The Ritz on the eve of my thirtieth birthday as a completely different person. In the six years between hotel stays I left my hometown again to live in both Boston and New York; I left that asshole I was dating at twenty-three and fell in (and out) of love with someone else; I adopted a dog; I started a tumultuous career in corporate communications; I started writing again after stopping for some time; I moved back to my hometown (again); I applied to grad school; I became an auntie twice over; I started writing my first novel; and started working independently as a freelance communications consultant. Along my journey, I’ve also said goodbye to several family members who have died and learned just how quickly our time on earth goes by. In short, I first arrived to The Ritz as a girl still figuring out my place in the world, and I came back as woman with an abundance of life experience, resting comfortably in who I am.
I felt whole in my body the night of my birthday celebration. I was wearing a dress I looked good in and heels named “Saturn,” which felt fitting for the end of my Saturn return. My hair was perfectly set in curls I’d spent two days shaping, nails painted to perfection, and makeup done. I felt elegant as my mother and I made our way from the hotel and arrived at dinner to meet other friends and family members. We dined at a fabulous seafood restaurant named Carmel. I felt right at home sipping a glass of Moët and munching on caviar fries. My Dad bought me balloons with “30” on them, and it felt good to signify to everyone in the restaurant that it was my birthday.
I am not used to celebrating myself so loudly because my birthday is smack dab in between Christmas and New Years. As a result, my birthday plans are typically slapped together last minute. This year I vowed that it would be different, hence the out of town travel and the nice hotel and restaurant. I had made it to thirty, after a very trying decade, and I needed to clap for myself in a big way. I am so grateful to the people that made it out to clap for me too. It was nice to be in the moment of my big day after the stress of putting it all together. I laughed, smiled, and even cried at dinner when my father gave a moving birthday speech promising to love me until the end.
Post-dinner was a brief hang out with everyone at the hotel before my Dad and his fiancé hit the road back home. The rest of us stayed in the hotel room to have an America’s Next Top Model style photoshoot before heading out for a party. We celebrated my birthday on the 27th, but it wasn’t actually my day of birth until midnight on the 28th.
When midnight struck on my thirtieth birthday, I was in a car on an Atlanta highway with my cousin and my friend. “Birthday Song,” by 2 Chains was blaring as the car zoomed into the night. I rolled down my window and released a scream into the dark abyss of the highway announcing to everyone, and no one, that I was thirty. It felt like a relief to have made it through my hardest decade and into the next one. But the celebration was quickly replaced by a question — “what now?”
I spent most of my twenty-ninth year occupied with the business of turning thirty. Thirty holds the weight of societal expectation. Certain markers are supposed to be hit upon entering this decade — you know, the house, the family, career, etc. So at twenty-nine, when I found myself so far from meeting those expectations, I began to panic and to question what I was doing with my life. In hindsight, it was an unfair question to pose to myself because what I was doing with my life was surviving.
I am aware that surviving is something people look down upon now. I myself have been guilty of seeing “survival mode” as a lower state of being to be replaced by thriving as soon as possible. But the truth is, we are never finished surviving. Once we hit a stride in one aspect of life, thriving if you will, we are thrown a curveball that forces us to survive the next thing. At twenty-eight I was thriving in a life that I had learned to master, at twenty-nine I was building a whole new reality. This year I started writing my first novel, applied to grad school, and started working independently as a freelance communications consultant. Everything I took on was new and challenging, and the best I could do was survive and push through to another day.
As difficult as it was to start over at a time in my life when I expected stability, I’m so happy that I had the courage to do so. Looking back on my twenty-ninth year and evaluating where I’m at at thirty, I may not have everything I thought I would, but I am certainly the kind of woman I had hoped I would be. In my personal and professional life I learned to stop settling for good enough and to have the audacity, and patience, to go after what I truly desire. Though trying at times, I have learned that I’d rather fight like hell to do my life my way than struggle trying to do it somebody else’s way. In many aspects, arriving at thirty is really a return to who I was as a girl before the world told me who to be. I realize that I’ve always had the answers and known the way, it’s simply been a matter of trusting myself, listening, and having a little faith.
When I look in the mirror today, I am good with the woman staring back at me and that’s all I could’ve ever hoped for myself. There were so many moments in my twenties where I found myself showing up as a person that I didn’t want to be. To love myself now and to have pride in where I’m at as a human, feels like the arrival I had been looking for at this big age.
Entering this decade I am hyper aware that life is changing. I feel this age in my spirit and in my bones, and as I look around at my family I feel gratitude to share space with those of us that are still here. I get to step into my thirties with both my parents by my side, and I’m lucky that through the darkest patches of my twenties they’ve been there to show me the light. As I look down the road of my thirties, I do so knowing that I know almost nothing about what’s to come. I have my hopes and my expectations, but I also have an awareness of how quickly and often life changes.
I’m looking forward to this next phase of my life while also bracing myself for all the ways life will challenge me. If there is any lesson I learned in my twenties is that life isn’t always magic and fairytales, it’s darkness and light and we survive by dancing in between. I embrace the totality of this human experience with a confidence that comes from knowing I will survive whatever comes. I move through the world with a clear understanding of what matters — myself and the people I love — everything else is just noise.
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