28: 10 Years of Adulthood & Becoming a Renaissance WomanBijou1 day ago5 min read On 7 August, I turned 28.And this birthday felt a little different.Not because I suddenly feel older - but because 28 feels like a moment to actually stop and look at the life I've been building. An actual natural reflective moment for me!And when I do feel proud. Not because everything is perfect, - how can everything ever be! But because when I look at my life, I see so many different parts of me existing at once.· Architect.· Designer.· Founder.· Creative.· Daughter.· Friend.· Dreamer….This is also my 10-year milestone of adulthood! – I know exciting moment for me. It did however get me thinking so much about my 18-year-old self, and what would she make of this.I've always been a bit of a "why not both?" personI've never been particularly good at putting myself into one box. I've always had lots of interests, lots of ideas and usually several things going on at the same time. A blessing that I really look back on now is my mum’s encouragement to be bold and take seriously every ambition I have. She always seems to approach my ideas not with disbelief or “why I would want to do that”, but instead how can we strategies to achieve this. The impact of that kind of mum is so powerful in maaany ways….But that’s a blog post for another day!For a long time, I thought this was something I needed to grow out of. Now I truly embrace this as one of my strengths. I love architecture and design; I love LOVE running my business – which is something younger B would never have thought. I love fashion and colour- (Of course!). I love creating things with my hands and the stories behind them.Mostly, I love that my life doesn't have to be built around just one of these things. In fact, some of the most exciting things have happened when they've overlapped.Architecture has influenced the way I think about products and my heritage influences the materials and stories I work with. My creativity has found a home in BijouCREATES. My career has given me skills that I can bring into my business, and my business has given me a different kind of creative freedom. Everything feeds into something else, so it leads me to believeI think I'm becoming a Renaissance womanI've been thinking a lot about this idea lately, - The Renaissance woman.Someone who is curious about lots of things. Someone who doesn't necessarily want to be defined by one skill, one profession or one identity. Its feels much closer to how I see myself.I don't want to spend my life doing just one thing because I'm "supposed" to. Maybe that sounds like a lot…. It probably is.But I think that's the point.There is something really powerful about paving your own pathOne of the things I'm most proud of as I enter my late twenties is that my life doesn't look exactly like anyone else's. My career sits alongside my creative practice that has become a business. This business connects me to my heritage, and my heritage influences my design. Somehow, all these different threads have started weaving themselves into something that feels very much like mine. That is probably the most fulfilling part, not following someone else's blueprint but creating my own.Of course, it isn't always easyI never want to purely romanticise having lots of plates spinning. There are difficult moments lots of them! There are weeks where work is intense and the business needs attention and your social life needs attention and your family needs attention and suddenly you realise you've forgotten to buy toilet paper!There are moments where you have to make difficult decisions, disappointments and times when you have to push yourself harder than you expected. Following your passions doesn’t mean you’re going to FEEL passionate about it 100% or the time!But I've realised that difficulty doesn't necessarily mean you're on the wrong path, it can just be reflective of doing something you care about. When you care about lots of things, life can be wonderfully full — but it can also be wonderfully busy. I'm learning to make space for both.So, what does 28 feel like?It feels like momentum. It feels like knowing myself better. It feels like being more confident in my ideas and more willing to pursue them. It feels like looking at the things I've built and thinking, I did that. And then immediately looking at what comes next and thinking, Okay, what's next? Because I don't feel like I'm at the end of anything. If anything, I feel like I'm at the beginning of something.There are still so many things I want to create.Something else that I’ve found distinctively interesting in this new birthday is that I feel the confidence of my younger years slowly re-emerging. I started making my first laptop cases at 21, aaand sent them to work with my brother, to his corporate office to sell to his colleagues! – which I would never do now. Needless to say, I operated with a boldness then, that through my mid-twenties retreated as I felt more burdened with realities and other strains of my life.If there's anything I'd encourage you to take from this, it's this:Don't make yourself smaller just to make your life easier to explain.So, me writing this birthday blog isn’t just purely the vanity of an August Leo (Well maybe it is a tad). But more, it’s me working through the introspective period I always find my birthday to be. Maybe even more so this year.As I reach this first decade of legal adulthood, I sit here and write this on a sunny morning from the upstairs of the Waterstones Café on Guildford Highstreet. Not too far away from the regular routine of my 18-year-old self and it makes me wonder, what my mental predecessor would make of where I am 10 years on. If on the surface how much has really changed?But the honest truth is, 18- year Bijou wasn’t a wistful girl. In all honesty, she was joy-filled and always looking for what was coming next, gearing up to climb the next mountain. Not too much thought was given to whatever has just passed but eager to keep moving onwards.Perhaps I should take some lessons from her. Perhaps you should too! My 28th Birthday Wish to Youhttps://video.wixstatic.com/video/071f83_1e33f63e9bfe49ec973c7497c8653148/1080p/mp4/file.mp4So, as I enter 28, my birthday wish isn't really just for myself- It's for you too.I hope you don't become too sensible to dream wildly- I’m only 10 years I and I’ve had to remind myself! Don’t let the realities of adulthood convince you that you have to choose between the things that make you feel alive.I hope you give yourself permission to be curious. To change your mind. To start something new at 28, 38 or 58. To have several passions. To be a little bit ridiculous about the things you love.And most importantly, here's to remembering that we don't have to be just one thing. Be the renaissance women (Or man, but of course 😊 )If 28 has taught me anything already, it's that there is so much more life ahead than there is behind, and that’s something that 18-year-old me seemed to understand so clearly!! So, my birthday wish in summary for you is simple:That you too have your own little Renaissance. That you try things, change your mind, follow your curiosities and become all the different versions of yourself you're meant to be. Build a life that feels like yours. And when you look around one day and realise you've become something you once only imagined, I hope you have the same thought I have today:Okay. What's next?Let’s go 28!With love,Bijou x Songs I listened to whilst writing Hypothetical- The Beaches One song away from Crying - Rachel Chinouriri Twiggy - Remi Wolf Twin Flame - The Aces Edge of the Earth - The Beaches
