39.

It’s my birthday! This year, we celebrated with a trip to Joshua Tree – one of my favorite and most meaningful places – just Daniel, Jack Wilder, and me for the weekend. We got back late last night and planned to take the day off of work. As I was about to cancel our childcare for the day a few weeks ago, I realized: “wait. What?! Why would I cancel our childcare??” Instead, Daniel and I had a day date that included writing time at 11th hour, a west cliff walk, massages, and soaking and reading. It was glorious.

I told Daniel that, this year, I want two hours a month of “Jack off” time to write. I miss writing, a bunch, and it’s nearly impossible to do with Jack Wilder attached to my hip every minute that I’m at home. Hence why today included writing time.

I heard Elizabeth Gilbert on Glennon Doyle’s podcast a year or two ago, talking about her recovery, which included the spiritual practice of two-way prayer letters every day. I was deeply intrigued. Then, last week, she was back on the podcast – both of which I listened to on the drive home from Joshua Tree – diving more into the practice. I decided today, to give it a try. She suggests starting with a reading that makes you feel closer to whatever Higher Powers may exist. I chose Mary Oliver’s “Mornings at Blackwater,” because it’s been in my head for a few weeks and because all of her work makes me think more about my life.

Here’s what I got:

Dear Love,

What would you have me know today? 

Dearest Emma, 

Happy Birthday, Baby! You are 39 today – wow! I know that you are trying to figure out what that means to you, if anything. You have been joking for the past decade in a half that you can’t wait to be 40 because that is when the world stops caring about how women look and so then you wouldn’t have that pressure anymore. But then you went and stopped caring – mostly – what the world thinks about how you look when you were 28, and decided to ditch every part of mainstream culture – including your high heels, straightened hair, and daily makeup application – to live a couple of years as a drifter. Here’s to not waiting until 40 anymore!

Remember last week when you were talking to Bella about your astrology chart? Part of it said something about you being an experimenter with your life. She asked you if that sounded true and you laughed, inwardly. At 38 – almost 39, at the time – you already felt like you had lived a few dramatically different versions of a life. The straight A student with the brilliant boyfriend, both of you super successful by the age of 25, the epitome of “money doesn’t buy happiness”; the spontaneous, adventurous drifter, on a journey to find herself (or the woman in the bad relationship, running and hiding from “the real world,” depending on which version you tell); the partner, mother, friend, activist, person in recovery, community member, executive director living a life that you absolutely love with a(nother) brilliant (but this one more so, and also kind) partner and people that you adore. The people who know you only in one of these eras would barely recognize the other Emmas and yet, they are all you. All of it is you.

You want to know what is next. I know that you do. You keep resisting the question, resisting the answers, because you feel almost guilty for not being content enough with what is. You love your life now, are exceedingly grateful for it. You are even grateful for all of the hard parts of your life – you’ve owned the truest and least attractive parts of your story – because you know that they were an important part of your spiritual journey, of you getting to where you are now. And you love where you are now. You feel so very, very lucky (and privileged) to have what you have – the relationships, the resources, the love. You finally love yourself – finally understand what it actually means to love yourself – and you love the life that you have built. You are content. Happy. Grateful. And yet. 

What’s next? You keep wondering.

Remember when you were 22 and found out that you had gotten accepted to your dream grad school? You cried. Not because you were happy, but because you were terrified. You were in the beginning of a new relationship, with a guy that you knew was going to be super successful, and you could see your life unfolding in a perfectly straight, neat line. Good jobs, good relationship, engagement, marriage, two kids, white picket fence. You were terrified that you’d wake up at 40 (next year!) and not know how you had gotten there, that you would not have made any conscious choices, just followed “the path” that all the good Jersey girls followed. You, my love, have never, ever been interested in a “status quo” life. In a complacent life. In a “good” life because this culture’s definition of “good” never seemed that “good” or real to you. You have always wanted something different, something that feels more real to you. You have always wanted to feel free.

And so, what I want you to know is that it is okay to keep wanting to experiment. It is okay to not feel content, to not want to “settle down,” to not want to stay in one place, in one version of your life, forever. Honey, you are not trying to run away or trying to escape or “pulling a geographic.” You do not want to change locations or jobs or lives because you are trying to fill a hole inside of yourself, or because you are unhappy, or because you think happiness is elsewhere. This is the thing: You are happy. You are in love with your life and your people. There is nothing wrong that you are trying to fix. 

Love, what I am trying to say is that you are recovering. You are whole. Remember when you chose to live in Santa Cruz because you “thought it would be a good place to heal?” You were right, in ways that you couldn’t imagine at the time. You know yourself. You can trust yourself. And so, any decisions that you make from here on out are yours. They are not your trauma, or your discomfort, or your anxiety, or your people pleasing, or your fear. In fact, the only fear that you really have now is of not living your life. Of missing the next version of your life because you are too afraid to change something that is already so good. How could it get better than this?

Honestly, love, I don’t know that it can get better, but I know that it can get different. And, for you, different has always led to free-er. Which is exactly what you came here to do, my love: to get as free as you possibly can. 

And, Emma, you are grateful. Exceedingly so. That is not just something that you say; it is something that is true. You literally cry tears of gratitude multiple times a day. You are so deeply in love with your life and your people, and you know, truly know, how precious that is. And what I need for you to understand now is that you can be really, really grateful and happy, and still want to keep going. Keep experimenting. Keep trying out new versions of how to live a life.

And you know what is pretty great about the next part? You do not have to “leave” your people to do it. My love, I want you to think of your people like a web – no, a net – not as something that traps you into staying where you are, but as something that catches you if you were ever to fall. (And, you will fall, darling. Everyone does. Human life is hard, for all of us.) Your net won’t go anywhere, even if you do. Your relationships will look different, but the love that you have used to weave this net – and the faith that you have instilled in its strength – will still be there. You are not alone. You have built a life where you will not be alone. One that includes the BEST partner, an adventure buddy that is just as much of a seeker as you are. One that also includes the most loving family – biological, in-laws, and chosen – the very best friends, and an inspiring community. You really are the luckiest.

And so. I do not know what is next for you, dear. But I do know that there is a next. The things that you dream about doing, the ways that you imagine living? You will pick one and you will do it. Living in Costa Rica? Reading and writing and camping in national parks around the country? Moving to Europe? You can and will do whatever you do decide you want to do next. You will keep experimenting with your life, with different ways of living a life, probably for as long as you are living. And, honey, it is a good thing. It is what you came here to do, love. To learn about love and truth and freedom, which you suspect might all be the same thing. You do not have to be afraid of this part of yourself, Emma. This is who you are. The astrology charts said so, and so do I.

So: Happy Birthday, Baby! To another year of laughter, joy, growth, seeking, experimenting, and so very much love. To being as wild as you want to be, as wild as you can be; “wild,” after all, is just another word for “free.” To living your life, darling, in whatever way you choose. To getting free-er, every year, for always.

I love you, keep going. 🙏🏻♥️