Happy Birthday my love

This letter goes out to my beautiful daughter, who has her 25th birthday today.

Happy Birthday my love.

You inspired me today to look back to where I was when I turned 25.

Sadly I don’t remember my exact birthday, probably due to the fact that I was so drunk that I spent most of the night talking to God on the big white telephone. All I can say to that is that it was the 90s and that was how birthdays were done then.

There’s something weirdly tender about that to me now — not the hangover (never the hangover), but that feeling of being young enough to think you’re invincible and scared enough to behave like you’re not. Because what I do remember though is that for the first time I felt old.

Not “old-old”. Just… old in my mind.

When 25 suddenly hits hard

The number 25 suddenly becomes a quarter century and that hits hard. It feels like a quarter of your life is over and a slight panic sets in.

From where I stand now this looks ridiculous, because 25 is still so young, but I remember the fear of getting old was very real then. Like it arrived overnight. Like it had been waiting around the corner with a clipboard, tapping its pen, saying: Right. So. What are we doing with this life then?

And I didn’t have an answer.

I just want to let you know that I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and I was just going with the flow. The path of least resistance with the most amount of freedom was where I was going.

And honestly… there’s nothing wrong with that. It was how I survived that season. Freedom mattered more than certainty. Feeling unboxed mattered more than having a plan. I didn’t have the words for it then, but I can see it now: I was chasing space.

But then I look at you.

The antidote is inspiration and creativity

Please know that the way you are living your life has been an inspiration from pretty much day one. You always knew what you wanted and that was where you were going.

I’m not saying you never doubted yourself — you’re human. But there has always been this steady line in you. This sense of direction. This quiet stubbornness that I secretly love because it’s yours. It’s the thing that makes you you.

And that’s the part I want to underline, because it’s the part that saves us, again and again.

The self doubt and the fears are a normal part of life, and the antidote is inspiration and creativity.

Whenever it comes up we need to ask ourselves: where am I starving myself of inspiration? What can I do right now to feed my creativity and not my fear?

Because fear is greedy. It multiplies. It narrates. It recruits. It turns one wobble into a whole identity crisis if you let it.

Creativity does the opposite. Creativity brings you back into your body. It gives you options. It makes space. It reminds you that you can make something out of what you’ve got — even if what you’ve got today is messy, tired, hormonal, or simply not interested in anyone’s nonsense.

And I find that as much as this helped me back then, going through peri needs the same approach.

When the doubts get loud, when everything feels like a battle, when I feel like I’m losing my footing — I don’t need more pressure. I need more inspiration. More creativity. More feeding the part of me that feels lit up.

Not because it fixes everything in a magical way. But because it changes what I’m feeding. It changes what gets to run the show.

I love you more than I can ever express. You made me a mother 25 years ago and you make me a better person every single day.

To everyone else reading this letter, let me know how old is your eldest by hitting reply.

Much love

Sharonah x