Dear Alia
Dear Alia,
These are the last few months of your twenties. How are you going to spend them?
You have come so far this past year alone — not to mention how far you’ve come in your life thus far. How are you feeling?
I have to tell you, I have so many ideas for this next chapter in my life. But before I share them, I want to remind you that the cycle of shame you so often get into is okay. Maybe we’ll never get over that, and that’s okay too. The path of life you are on is yours and yours alone, and no one else is meant to face what we have faced. But we will continue to navigate it together.
I have to tell you, there was a point in time when I thought I had all the answers. I was twenty-three. I had published my first book, the happyness project, on Barnes & Noble. I graduated with a master’s degree from an Ivy League university, worked at the United Nations, had high-class friends, had a great boyfriend on paper whom I was sure I was going to marry, didn’t give a second thought to finances, and was receiving all the validation I had so desperately wanted my entire life.
It wasn’t meant to last very long.
I wasn’t selling enough books to feel personally fulfilled, the high of attending an Ivy League university faded as graduation grew further into the past, and I realized the friends I had didn’t actually like *me* at all. The boyfriend who was so perfect on paper ended up being an abusive partner, finances became more real with every passing minute as I grew older, and all the validation I received wasn’t a reflection of who I was at all. It was a reflection of how I wanted everyone to see me. I cared so much about that perception that
I forgot to care about how I saw myself.
So I’m here to tell you, nearly seven years later, that I didn’t have the answers then, and I still don’t now.
I don’t think I ever will.
But what I can tell you is that the more you remain numb and run away from yourself,
the only thing you will escape is time.
Our time is limited. I don’t think anything was a waste of my time because it was my time, and there’s beauty in that. I have control over my time, my energy, and my choices. But this decade — this next chapter — I want to be intentional. I want to live and not run.
I leave and return to social media in periods, but I always return because I know my words and writing are bigger than myself.
I reached countless people when I expressed myself to empower others.
So, Alia, here’s the story. We’re almost thirty now. We’re going to continue to come and go from an imaginary audience on Instagram because that’s life. But what isn’t imaginary is the documenting of my life, the individuals who have been touched by my writing (even if that one person is my cat), the understanding that my time is valuable, and my intentions for what I want to accomplish in my life.
Here we are, October 15, 2026, about three months away from our thirtieth birthday, and I’m going to make it count while I count down the days until then.
Stay tuned for my ever-growing story.
All my love,
Alia