creativity, essay, interesting reads, lifestyle, Self care, Writing

35 Lessons at 35

January 28, 2025 nthabiandherbooks Leave a comment

My birthday has passed and I am officially 35! Looking over my shoulder over the past year and the past five years have brought about a lot of change not just for myself but for the world in general. The year I turned 30 is the same year that the world was hit by a global pandemic and the year I moved to London. Since then I’ve started a new job in a new industry and had a baby while the world seems to be having one unprecedented time after another.

At my birthday dinner; having a mocktail, eating my greens and feeding my son.

I’ve learnt a few lessons since then and so I’ve put together a list of 35 lessons I’ve learnt in 35 years. Hopefully a lot of these lessons will be the same lessons I learnt at 30, I’ve decided not to read those prior to posting this just in case it sways me.

To spare me and you from any further waffling let us get into my 35 lessons:

Be kind.
Mind your business. This doesn’t mean ignore people but rather that some things aren’t your business. You’ll know when this applies.
Eat fruit and vegetables.
Eat other types of food too.
Let people know you love them. This is different from person to person.
Drink water.
The only constant in life is truly change, get as comfortable with change as you can as soon as possible.
Get some rest when you can and if you can’t don’t wreck yourself worried about not getting enough rest.
Pets are great but also a lot of work.
Take a vitamin D supplement.
Read what you want to read.
Watch what you want to watch.
Listen to what you want to listen to.
If people from marginalised groups explain why what you read, watch and listen to is a problem because of the ideas it supports that are against that group – have an open mind. Don’t get offended, it’s not really about you in that moment.
Leave a little more room for greyness because most things are not black and white.
Making your own money is still undefeated.
Work hard. Hard is relative to you. No one else can define that for you.
Understand that just as no one can define hard for you, you can’t define hard for anyone else.
Aging is the only way to stay alive. Honestly it’s not that complicated.
The world is big. If you can experience different joys from different places do it.
Number 20 doesn’t always mean you have to travel.
No one knows where the other sock goes. Just hope it’s happy and wear mismatched socks at this point!
Baby socks are a whole new ball game, they both disappear… at different times.
You only live once… like for real for real. Depending on how you look at it this is either great news or not so much. But keep in mind there’s no do-over for life.
Just because there’s no do-over for life doesn’t mean there’s no do-over for life events. If you need to start over do it. If you need to pick something up again do it. If you need to mend a relationship do it. There are infinite chances as long as you’re alive.
Grief comes in waves. Sit in it. Sometimes you’ll be overwhelmed as though the loss is an open wound and on these days it’s perfectly okay to feel wounded and retreat if that’s what soothes you.
Move your body in ways that bring you some form of joy. But also accept that sometimes it won’t always bring you joy. Do with this knowledge what you will. And allow others to do the same.
Friendships are important and require regular nurturing. Try not to keep score.
Romantic relationships are friendships with a little extra. See above.
Being partnered isn’t nearly as important as who you are partnered to.
Wear sunscreen.
Keep learning. New things. Old things. Just keep learning.
Do a load of laundry every two days, you’ll never get to the bottom of the pile but it’s nice to try.
Show yourself grace. This will be the hardest thing to do sometimes but you have to try.
Hug your loved ones as often as you can.

That’s it, those are my lessons. I’ve also found in writing these out that I am less likely to over-explain what they mean. These lessons just are, plain and simple.

Here’s to aging, be it gracefully or otherwise.

Thank you for reading.

creativity, lifestyle, Writing

Returning to the page: why my writing reads more like a journal entry

January 19, 2025 nthabiandherbooks Leave a comment

This is going to be a short post. It’s a post for myself and anyone else who stumbles upon this blog and wonders why the musings of an almost 35 year old which should be confined to a journal are somehow on the internet!

The next few weeks of writing will not be perfect. They will not be polished. They will not be nuanced. They will not even make sense sometimes. They will simply be posted!

I have struggled a lot with sitting down to write. Either because I didn’t have time or because any time I had I was handing over to Zuckerberg. Or because I thought if I were to write I would have to show up perfect or not show up at all.

For the next few weeks or months or however long I feel like it, I will not be writing to contribute anything useful to the world. I will be writing to simply write.

It will read like a journal as I document my very mundane thoughts while taking care of my baby.

If you’re here and you’re reading thank you for joining me… however I have now laid down intention of my blog posts into the near future and I feel good about that.

I hope you’ll stay.

books, creativity, essay, interesting reads, lifestyle, Motherhood, Self care, Writing

Happy New Year Vision 2025

January 19, 2025 nthabiandherbooks Leave a comment

Happy new year!!! 🥳🥳🥳

I have stepped into 2025 a bit more upbeat and excited! I’ll be honest and say the past few years I have dreaded the beginnings of each year. In 2022 and 2023 both years started off with anxiety as my resolution and goal for each of those years was to have a baby (a very silly resolution in hindsight). And in 2024 I was completely exhausted by the trying to conceive journey having suffered a pregnancy loss in October 2023. And so I wasn’t hopeful and had no desire to think about what else I’d like out of the year.

2025 however is starting off on a different note; I am typing this on the 19th of January with my snoozing son in my left arm suckling at my left breast. Life is good. I also have the added benefit of skipping my works busy season this year. In any normal year I would be laying out my work uniform to eliminate any issues getting dressed in the morning and planning meals to avoid any decision fatigue which inevitably ends in eating takeout!

And so taking advantage of my good fortune and good mood, I have created a vision board for the first time in my life.

I’ve categorised my goals into the following categories:

Motherhood
Love
Body
Reading
Creativity
Work

Within these categories I have goals that are both tangible and measurable; for example do yoga at least twice a week and write a blog post at least three times a week. And those that are less rigid such as finding my groove as a mother and then later on as a working mother when I am back at work in October.

I will be sharing on this blog my progress with these goals as a way to keep myself accountable and also meet that blog three days a week quota 😉.

I am really excited for 2025 and hope you are too!

I hope we are all able to hold onto our resolutions and goals over the next 346 days!!!

Happy new year! Or as they say in South Africa, COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON 🥳🥳🥳

interesting reads, lifestyle, mental health, Motherhood

Motherhood series: Why I’m letting motherhood change me

January 8, 2025 nthabiandherbooks Leave a comment

I have been a mother now for just over two months, eleven weeks to be exact. It has been a whirlwind of an experience. To say motherhood has hit me like a ton of bricks would be an understatement!

Ever the cynic and “realist” I walked into this new role completely prepared for everything to be as hard as it could possibly be. I imagined a terrible recovery and this assumption was worsened when I found out that I couldn’t have my baby vaginally at home as I’d planned but that I’d need to have a c-section. Having not read up on c-sections I imagined that I would spend the first few hours of my baby’s life drugged up and would be able to breastfeed and cuddle him. I thought that after that I’d be in a state of pain that would require I’d be on pain medication and again would be unable to feed my baby.

Fortunately for me and the baby I was completely off! Recovery was awful but I was home the day after giving birth and I found that I could survive on the recommended paracetamol and ibuprofen pain management schedule suggested by the NHS. My husband made sure that I was comfortable, well fed and supported in the big task of feeding our little boy.

And feed him I did! On the third day when my milk came in instead of being in tears as I was told I would be I was in high spirits! After every feed I felt my sense of self just go higher and I higher. I tapped into an innate quality I have always possessed which is the belief that I can do everything and anything and with that my motherhood course was charted.

I won’t lie and say there haven’t been days when I’ve survived with two hours of pieced together sleep and the hope of a gummy smile. And I won’t minimise how difficult it was recovering from what is a major surgery.

What I am saying is that motherhood has been a sea of highs peppered with some lows purely because have jumped head on into the inevitable change. I say inevitable because even during pregnancy the physical changes alone are enough to send one into a tailspin. On the other side though, on the other side of pregnancy, comes motherhood with its many changes that aren’t solely confined to the physical.

Over the month and a half I have seen myself transform into someone else. However this is not the first time I have done this.

When I moved to London from Johannesburg I moved from moving through the world hyper vigilant to relaxing enough when walking down the street reading Oscar Wilde exercising an appropriate amount of vigilance.

When I started running in 2010 I became obsessed with running, protein and loved drinking smoothies and when I stopped running in 2020 I started referring to smoothies as “fruit soup” .

I’ve changed a lot. Sometimes the change was warranted and other times it was a trauma response but it was change I undertook nonetheless with varying levels of resistance. In all these changes the most important parts of myself have stayed constant.

I still believe in equity and equality across genders, sexualities and abilities. I still believe that we need to do better by the planet and ourselves by consuming less. And I still believe that we owe one another kindness, always.

When people imagine change as a result of becoming a mother it is often perceived as if it is the complete abandonment of the self when in actual fact it can be an expansion of who and what we are just like any other change. The only thing that sets motherhood apart is that, for me anyway, the change is non-negotiable.

The changes are both neurological and physiological. Embracing this for me has meant being present in my bodies current role as it provides nutrition for my son (because I am privileged enough to the able to). It has meant leaving my old anxieties behind me and following my intuition in how I show up as a parent and mother. It has meant trusting that the change that motherhood has brought on is meant to transform me in the best of ways not only for myself but also for my son for the rest of our lives.

books, creativity, fiction, goodreads, interesting reads, lifestyle, Writing

2024 Reading Wrap up & Reflection

January 3, 2025 nthabiandherbooks Leave a comment

Twenty twenty four was a wild ride of a year for me. I started off the year with a desire to re-launch my YouTube channel and a fire inside me to experience great books. All these lofty plans were of course put to rest when on the last Saturday in February I found out I was pregnant and was hit with a tsunami of hormones soon after. My desire and capacity for anything book related went out the window as I channeled what little energy I had towards my day job and trying very hard not to vomit every minute of every day.

The wonderful thing about being pregnant though, other than the fact that I have the most perfect little boy on earth, was that my reading had to be focused as I could only read books that I was genuinely interested in. So when my reading finally resumed in July every book that did not relate to pregnancy, birth or breastfeeding felt like a breath of fresh air.

With that being said however there were some recurring themes and some standout books. The biggest theme me was “motherhood” , somehow even the books I didn’t think would have anything to do with motherhood touched on it as a topic one way or another. I’ve decided that these were subconscious choices I was making and somehow reading about parenting even when I didn’t intend to because you can never be too prepared!

Now that I’ve beat about the bush appropriately let’s get into my top 5 books for 2024:

Book 5: Minor Detail by Adana Shibli

In this book we are split between two timelines set in Palestine with two women. One woman who is subjected to a traumatic death and another woman many years later who seeks to investigate the death.

This is the sort of book that stays with you. We follow two events that are in two different time periods in Palestine.

I appreciated the writers ability to pack so much story into such a short book. It’s very rare that a book can be neither character or plot driven and still manage to make me as a reader heavily invested in the story.

Book 4: Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid

Witty and precise, this book is an unraveling of a mother and daughter relationship. Annie John was my second Jamaica Kincaid book and we follow a young girl, Annie John, as she goes from being the apple of her mothers eye to something on the opposite of the spectrum as expectations of what it is to be a “young woman” start to become the focal point of their relationship.

I appreciated Kincaid’s ability to give you a character that is so young yet is able to feel the full magnitude of love and loss when that love is lost.

Book 3: The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

A fantastically told family saga detailing the fall of a great family built on shaky ground. We meet a few characters in this book including; a teenage daughter on cusp of beginning her adulthood and a young son who is lonely amidst a family of people all dealing with their own failings.

I really appreciated that the characters in this book were all fully fleshed out and each of their stories felt real, as though if you were had pulled up a chair and were listening to someone tell you their life story.

Book 2: Rootless by Krystle Zara Appiah

A love story following the lives of a Ghanaian-British couple who veer into parenthood despite one of them being uninterested in parenthood. We follow the challenges that occur between two people who love each other, with opposing views on parenthood and their families.

I loved the writers crafting of characters and storyline. At every point I felt truly engaged in what would happen next and found myself rooting for this young couple despite finding myself on opposite sides of each of them.

Book 1: Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy

This book is a book on love between mother and child. It details the many challenges this mother faces in mothering her very young son (a toddler), the friction this causes between her and her husband and the depth of her love for her son.

I loved the writing his book. I think it perfectly captures what it is to be a mother in love. There are so many challenges and moments of self doubt in this book but in all of it there is a thick layer that is the love a mother has for her child.

Those are all the books I’ve loved this year. On my YouTube channel Best Books of 2024 I discuss two other books which make my top seven but not my top five reads. Overall I think my enjoyment of books was very much coloured by the phase in life I am in. Ig would be interesting to me whether by top five books would strike the same chord with me if I were to read them in the future.

All in all good reading year all things considered.

I’m looking forward to more great reads in 2025 and wishing you the same.

Nthabi And Her Books