Friday Things // 02.10.2023

The one about keeping up.

Feb 10, 2023

Someone recently asked me why it seemed like the milestones in their life seemed to constantly happen “late.” Why their big firsts and adulthood accomplishments seemed to always be a few years after everyone else (i.e., their friends and peers). Like their proverbial train was perpetually running a bit behind schedule.

My immediate reaction was to want to say they were wrong, and I think I even asked them whose timeline they were comparing their life to. There’s no set plan for anyone to be on, not really. Not for getting married, or having a certain title at work, or buying your first house.

But then I let their words sink in.

It broke my heart a little bit to realize they felt that way, like they couldn’t really savor or celebrate their big moment because it should have happened 5 years ago or something. As if the White Rabbit from “Alice in Wonderland” was standing over their shoulder impatiently with a stopwatch.

Does there seem to be this weird schedule that society assumes we’re all on? Yes, totally, and social media does a very good job of reinforcing it. And even without social media, I think that pressure is there — invisible but loud, reminding you that you’re X number of years behind everyone you went to high school with, or that you’re the only one without xyz in your friend group.

I think I’ve always felt like I was running a little late in life. I got my driver’s license after everyone else, didn’t have my first real boyfriend til after all my friends, and just generally forever looked younger than my age — a characteristic that is absolutely infuriating when you’re, say, 12 and want to be able to pass as a high schooler. I constantly felt like my life timeline was ever so slightly behind — so much so that I eventually lost track that there were these general expectations for when you’re “supposed” to do certain things. I forgot that I was behind.

Don’t worry, though — I recently remembered, and it was after all my friends started having kids. Again, I was one of the few people I knew who didn’t have plans to have a baby any time soon, and it sort of threw me. I do feel late, or behind, even now, and even though I know I’m on the right path for me. It feels a little bit like everyone joined a new club that I’m not a member of, or speaks a language I can’t seem to get the hang of.

There’s an almost imperceptible loneliness there — at feeling like the odd one out (even if you chose to be).

But…… how can you be late in keeping up with your own life? That doesn’t make sense, and yet there it comes along with all its dusty baggage when the people in your immediate circles are doing things that you suddenly can’t relate to, moving on to levels of adulthood that feel out of reach.

Anyways, all that to say there is no one path forward. There is no expectation that you have to live up to or really any guarantee of what’s to come, regardless of which route you take or how many turns you take. Life is, truly, a choose-your-own-adventure novel. (Anyone else read the Goosebumps ones when you were a kid? I was obsessed.) You can spend your time stuck on the fact that you didn’t reach some made-up milestones at the pace someone you don’t know on Instagram did (or even that your BFFs did), or you can keep choosing what brings you joy, and believe deeply that what’s meant for you hasn’t missed you.

And it hasn’t — really — and when it arrives, I hope you celebrate the heck out of it.

So Many Somethings

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