38 Trips Around the Sun : What I have taken from my time here.
Today I am 38 years old.
It’s interesting to look back on a life you never expected to experience so fully.
To see the world through the lens of growth through pain,
growth through hardship,
and growth through self-awareness.
I’ve always felt that a birthday is the true new year.
It’s when I take stock of the life I’ve lived so far
and refocus on where I want to go next.
Reaching 38 feels like a quiet kind of miracle.
There were chapters where I didn’t think I’d make it this far.
Moments where survival was the only goal.
But I did it. Alone. When it would have broken most people.
My pride doesn’t come from ego.
It comes from the fact that I kept going.
I built a life from the ashes of everything that was meant to destroy me.
And somewhere in the process of surviving, I started to thrive.
I can see clearly now that I’ve gone through it.
But going through it felt like my world was ending over and over again.
In reality, I was being rebuilt into someone who could hold so much more.
My capacity to take on what would break others exists because I spent years in a kind of struggle most will never understand.
I wouldn’t wish that pain on anyone, but I’m grateful for it.
It gave me a kind of growth that no money can buy,
no person can replace,
and that belongs entirely to me.
For that alone, I feel deeply blessed.
I would not be the creative force that I am without the pain I have experienced in my life.
Pain is an interesting friend.
It can take something that was whole and unbothered, unmoved,
and shift it into grooves, mountains, and roads
where there was once only a mountain.
And while it changes us at the core,
it allows us to experience life differently.
Because where there was once a mountain you had to climb,
you now have a road you can drive up,
a path you can walk down.
The pain shapes us.
And it is in who we choose to become after that pain
that truly proves who we are.
Do we choose to get bitter,
or do we choose to become better?
Do we choose to repeat the pain that was pushed onto us,
or do we choose to rewrite history
and be the love we once needed,
the love we know this world needs now?
If you’re in your own dark season, hold on.
The peace you’re craving might be waiting on the other side of your persistence.
Legacy Letters
Discover why women over 50 deserve to be photographed with intention. This empowering blog by Verity Visions explores how beauty evolves and why this chapter is worth documenting through cinematic, high-end portraiture.
Model LP in Approved magazine October 2025 Shot by Verity Visions in Salem Oregon
Model Linda SLAYS publication with Verity Visions