The birthday struggle is real (instagram) (EN)

The birthday struggle is real.
This is my 27 year old face. Sometimes. Because this is my ‘pretty pose’. Just like George Michael I have this one look, this one gaze, this one side of my face that makes me happy to have this particular body.
Tomorrow I’ll turn 28 and for some it’s just another age and ‘still so young!’, but to me this age represents so much more. My brother discovered, just a few months before he turned 28, that he had a giant brain tumor.

I can’t imagine what it would be like if someone would say I have one. It feels as if I haven’t started living my life just yet. I don’t feel as much alive as I thought I would be, at the age of 27, turning 28.

But what does ‘feeling alive’ mean? If I would die in about 3 years, just like my brother, would I think this life, that I have lived thus far, was meaningful to me?

Not to others, but ‘to me’?

To be quite honest (since honesty is all we have): I don’t think so. I’m still looking around, trying to find the one thing or multiple things that make me happy. (I know everyone says happiness is an inside job, but screw them.) I still feel lonely most of the time, I’m still not traveling as much as I would like to, I can still feel so fucking insecure about my love life, I’m still pondering about my position in this world and the work I’d like to do. But when I look at this small spring portrait, I see the woman that I want to be: strong, independent, loving, creative, sensual, powerful and wise. Maybe, and hopefully, I’ll become more of her next year.

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