Sarala Life — Life in Chapters: Careers, Canines, Cabernet & Courage

On birthdays, reciprocity, disappointment, ambition, and learning to participate in my own life.

There is something about a good glass of wine that encourages honesty.

Maybe it’s the ritual of it. Pouring it. Sitting down. Not rushing to the next thing. Or maybe, by the time you reach a certain age, you realise some thoughts need somewhere to go.

So tonight, they’re going here.

Over a glass of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

My birthday is approaching, and this year I’m looking at it differently.

I love birthdays. I always have. I’m someone who believes in celebrating life — preferably with a passport, a beautiful hotel and an unnecessarily long dinner somewhere fabulous.

This year, though, travel may not happen.

Finances have been raised as the reason, and I understand that. In fact, I understand it perhaps more than ever because I have invested heavily in building my business this year. I am learning that entrepreneurship requires not only courage but restraint. Sometimes the grown-up decision is not the glamorous one.

But I’ve realised that what disappoints me isn’t really the absence of a plane ticket.

It is the absence of a counterproposal.

If not the trip, then what?

A night away? A carefully planned weekend at home? Somewhere new for dinner? Something thoughtful, researched, arranged?

Not expensive. Intentional.

There is a difference.

And perhaps that’s what I’ve been thinking about lately: the difference between being loved and feeling considered. Between people being present in your life and people actively pouring into it.

I don’t say that to indict anyone. I certainly don’t want to conduct my marriage through a blog post. Relationships are complicated, private things, and there are always perspectives other than our own.

But I can talk about what something awakens in me.

And lately I have been asking myself a difficult question:

Who waters the person who is always watering everyone else?

I have spent much of my life being capable.

I organise. I solve. I remember. I show up. I work. I encourage. I make things happen.

Capability is a wonderful thing.

It can also become a trap.

Because when you are good at looking after yourself, people can begin to assume that you don’t need looking after.

And maybe, somewhere along the way, you begin assuming it too.

A couple of weeks ago, my therapist said something that has stayed with me: whatever my life looks like four years from now will ultimately be on me.

Not in a cruel way. In an agency way.

At first, that landed heavily.

Because there are things about our lives that absolutely involve other people. Their choices affect us. Their capacity affects us. Their willingness to show up affects us.

But I cannot build my future around the hope that someone else will eventually become the architect of it.

That part belongs to me.

And strangely, accepting that has been both sad and liberating.

Because there have been beautiful things happening too.

I recently secured another engagement from a new client who came back to work with me again. That matters enormously when you’re building something of your own.

I’m preparing to travel to Washington in September to speak at the From Breakthrough to the Bank Brunch — another opportunity that once lived somewhere in the category of things I’d love to do someday and is now actually on my calendar.

I’ve taken myself on solo dates.

I’ve dressed up simply because I wanted to feel beautiful.

I went to a friend’s birthday, made an effort, painted my nails red and enjoyed being out in the world.

I’ve been cooking more.

I’ve been exercising.

I’ve been deliberately resting instead of treating rest as something I earn only after exhaustion.

And I’ve been spending more time simply enjoying my dogs — not while answering an email, planning the next project or mentally running through tomorrow’s list. Just enjoying them.

These are small things.

Except they aren’t.

They are evidence of a woman learning to participate in her own life instead of constantly administering it.

A friend said something to me recently that I haven’t been able to shake.

She told me she had watched how hard I had been trying — working, exercising, building, saving, planning, carrying responsibilities — and that she had always found something inspiring in that.

Sometimes you need someone outside of your own head to remind you of the effort you have stopped giving yourself credit for.

Because I’ve been asking myself another question lately:

What exactly am I afraid of?

Being on my own?

There is an uncomfortable irony in fearing that when you already know how to look after yourself.

Financially. Emotionally. Practically. Professionally.

Perhaps the fear isn’t really about being alone.

Perhaps it’s about letting go of the expectation that certain people will eventually show up for us in precisely the ways we’ve imagined.

And maybe there is grief in that.

Not everything we grieve has to end.

Sometimes we grieve expectations.

Versions of relationships.

The person we thought someone might become.

Even versions of ourselves.

I’ve also become more protective of the truth of my own life.

Recently someone jokingly suggested that my husband was funding one of my trips.

I laughed.

But afterwards I thought: actually, no.

I work hard for the things I experience. I save for them. I plan for them. I make choices and sacrifices for them.

There is nothing wrong with being treated by your partner — how lovely when that happens — but there is also nothing wrong with quietly correcting a narrative that erases your own work.

I don’t need to diminish anyone else to acknowledge myself.

Maybe that is where I am as another birthday approaches.

Not angry.

Not bitter.

Not pretending everything is wonderful either.

Just increasingly unwilling to abandon myself while waiting for other people to choose me.

And here’s the strange thing:

there can be two truths at the same time.

My life is full.

And there are parts of it that make me sad.

I am proud of the business I am building.

And I want more clients.

I am grateful for the opportunities finding me.

And sometimes I wonder, with all the connections in this enormous interconnected world, why I haven’t been able to turn more of them into sustainable income yet.

I feel strong.

And sometimes I feel lonely.

I love people deeply.

And I am tired of always being the person doing the watering.

None of those truths cancels out the others.

Maybe maturity isn’t reaching some magical point where everything finally makes sense and you’re permanently happy with the life you’ve created.

Maybe it’s being able to look honestly at what is beautiful and what hurts without allowing either one to distort the whole picture.

So I don’t know exactly what my birthday will look like this year.

Maybe I’ll still get on a plane.

Maybe I’ll decide the financially strategic thing is to stay home.

Maybe I’ll buy myself an excellent bottle of wine, put on something fabulous, paint my nails red again and create a celebration that feels like me.

What I do know is that I don’t want to spend another year waiting to see what everyone else decides before deciding what my own life gets to look like.

There is too much I still want.

More business. More financial freedom. More travel. More rooms where I get to speak. More meaningful connections. More mornings when I wake up excited about what I’m building.

And yes, more reciprocity.

More being considered.

More being watered.

But perhaps the biggest shift is understanding that while I can desire those things from the people around me, I cannot make my happiness conditional upon receiving them.

So tonight, I’ll pour another small glass.

I’ll think about the woman I was at 30, the woman I became at 40, and the woman I might be four years from now.

And instead of asking whether everyone else will show up for her, perhaps the better question is:

Will I?

I’m beginning to think that’s the relationship I can no longer afford to neglect.