I am 34 and I want you to know I work hard.

I am 34 and I want you to know that my hard work looks different than yours.
I am 34 and I know I probably COULDN’T do your hard work neither could you set foot in mine.
I want you to know that I am someone who deals with mental health issues and with burnout and I still keep showing up.
I want you to know I am 34 and I don’t expect life to be easy.

In actuality I expect that life isn’t easy and that when something good happens than apparently something bad is around the corner.
I am 34 and I’m cynical.

I am 34 and I have lost people I have loved and have been unsure I could love like that again.

I am 34 and I have held the hands of my parents while they were laying in hospital beds and gotten phone calls half a world away that my mom was really sick.

I  am 34 and I spent a week of spring break from teaching changing my mom’s depends.

I want you to know that I’m 34 and I care more deeply for humans than when I was 24.
I want you to know that even though I don’t expect good things I still, as much as I can, expect people to be good.

I am 34 and I don’t expect to get married or have kids.                                                                I am 34 and I wish all the goodness for all of my friends.

(I am 34 and I’m a 2 on the enneagram).
I want you to know that I’m 34 and I have trust issues.
I want you to know that I’m 34 and the words “put on your big girl panties” and “fake it til you make it” have lost their meaning.

Because, I am 34 and I don’t think we should have to tell people to show up- I think they just should.

I am 34 and I love avocado toast and cold brew.
I am 34 and if my paycheck doesn’t meet to the other end I eat cereal 4 nights in a row.
I am 34 and if my paycheck doesn’t meet to the other end but I have a friend that needs dinner and safe place, I would share my cereal.                                                                            I am 34 and even if I didn’t have PTO I would still spend a week volunteering with foster kids.

I am 34 and I was raised in a time that you went to college.
I am 34 and I have a lot of student loans.
I am 34 and I wouldn’t wish away the experience of college.

I am 34 and a preschool teacher and I had to have active shooter training in the event a shooter comes into my classroom with my 15 tiny humans
I am 34 and in the event of an active shooter I will do everything in my power to keep my 15 tiny humans safe (and let’s be completely honest the rest of the tiny humans in the building).
I am 34 and I worry about my nieces and nephews setting foot on their high school and college campuses for the same reason

I am 34 and I am doing my best.

My generation has been taught a lot of things. We’ve been taught to be kind, to strive for our dreams, to care for our fellow man.
We’ve been told over and over that we can have more than the previous generations.
(And that? That is a lot).
We’ve been taught to fight and raise our voices louder and we’ve created platforms to do so.
I don’t know what it’s like to have lived through what the generations prior to me have had to live through. I wouldn’t even be able to fathom.
All I know is what I’ve been given, what I’m dealing with and all I can do is do my best to understand and have compassion and empathy for those with different lives than me.
All I know is that there are people older than me that I can garner knowledge and people older than me that can garner knowledge from me.
All I know it is my job to not only give to those younger than me, but have the ability to listen as well.
I am 34 and I am doing my best.
And tomorrow? Tomorrow, I will probably try harder.