The Last Day of My Twenties

Tomorrow I turn thirty. I'm secretly kind of pumped. I've always wanted to be a grown-up, and as we all know, thirty is definitely a grown-up. Being a teenager was fucking horrific, being a twenty-something was definitely better, and right now is the best.

Abstractly, I'm a combination of all things old and new. I'm a combination of every experience I've had in the past and every experience I yearn for in the future.

Concretely, I'm sitting on my mid-century thrifted office couch, my chromebook in my lap with a throw wrapped around my shoulders, listening to Carole King's Tapestry on the record player. Our vinyl collection is slowly growing. I grabbed a few from my parents' collection when I was home, we picked up a couple over the holidays (both thrifted and new), and I was gifted a few incredible albums (including the aforementioned Tapestry) by J's mom for my birthday.

Tapestry, aside from being one of the greatest musical achievements by a woman in musical history, plays a huge role in one of my best ever life experiences. My junior internship was on a US Congressional Campaign working in the outreach department, so throughout the course of the campaign I got to go to a couple cool house events and talk politics with real adults (the bees knees for Political Science undergrads). The amazing Carole King was at one of these parties, campaigning on behalf of the man running for the Senate seat at the time.

While at that fundraiser, she said something that has stuck with me to this day. A woman had asked Carole King if, in addition to endorsing the Senator, she would also endorse our candidate, running for Congress. She said that she could not. At first I was slightly taken aback, but then she went on to explain that while our candidate shared all her personal views, her opponent had voted to approve a wildlife bill that Carole King had personally gone around to campaign for. She continued on to say that while she would probably vote for for our candidate over the opponent, she publicly could not turn her back on someone that had stood with her when she asked.

Later in the evening, she had a sing along. We gathered into the foyer and around the solid wood wrap-around staircase to sing songs off the Tapestry album led by the incredible woman herself. To this day, I love this record and I'm so happy to have a copy of my own so that I can relive that memory over and over again.

Listening to music reminds me of the memories that I love. Listening to music reminds me that I want to record my memories in a more lasting form. Listening to music reminds me why I love documenting my life, and having a special space to capture all of the amazing moments that life gives us.

I've had a lot of incredible experiences over these past thirty years. I've documented so many of these memories here on my blog, in photographs as well as in the multitude of scrapbooks I've created in that time. I feel grateful to be able to share my life, to document my experiences, and make my living through the art of scrapbooking as self-documentation. I'm excited to see what the next decade brings to my life.

xo

PS -- I'm having a birthday sale on the Awesome Ladies Project 2016 Feminist Scrapbook Challenge. Buy One for You -- Gift One to a Friend. Learn more here.