​What do you want for thirty?

 What do you want for thirty?

I want to be courageous. I want to take risks and feel the wind at my back before I take my leap, then revel in the wind anointing my face, blessing me with its favor.

I want to love myself deeply. At every stage. With every flaw and every perfection. I want to stare in the mirror and love who I see.

I want to look back at time kindly, and gratefully. And I want to know when to kiss my dear friend, nostalgia goodbye.

I want my spirit to be strong, bound together by the strength of my loved ones long gone.

I want to always be a light for others, but never, ever at the cost of dimming my own.

I want the will to forge a path anytime I don’t see a way.

I want to walk away from things that no longer serve me.

I want these hands to touch everything my grandmother fought to reach, and anything my mother could not.

In their honor.

In my honor.

I want thirty to mark my redemption.

The decade of my glory.

Hello, thirty. I have been waiting for you.

Photography by Nicole Acosta