The Timeline of Life

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately… well, honestly the whirlwind of thoughts in my brain is something I haven’t quite mastered turning off (despite my annual subscription to Headspace).

This particular whirlwind was all about the timeline of life that society has so neatly laid out for us. Except, what happens when you find that your life doesn’t follow said timeline? Or worse, that you may not even want any of the events on the timeline, like at all. Not even a little. It starts to feel a little like you’re running a race you never even signed up for. And let’s be honest, most of us only signed up for the race in the first place so we could get the free t-shirt that’s ultimately going to sit at the bottom of the drawer and never get worn.

I realize not everyone feels the pressure to follow the expected path set out for us by our family, friends, superiors, society - and that is awesome! Truly, I am happy for you. I only wish I had found or was influenced by you earlier in my life. At the ripe age of 33, I am finally realizing that the path - i.e. college, significant other, amazing career, house, car, kids, etc - may not be for me, and that’s okay. I’m okay with that.

Now comes the spiral of doubt and worry about what it is that I actually want out of life. This spiral is normal, right? People feel like this all the time. Nobody has it all figured out. We’re just rolling with the punches as we move along. That’s, like a normal thing, right?. Just nod your head and agree with me, please, because I’m just going to keep telling myself that it’s normal to feel like this and I’d really appreciate your support on this one.

So, I’m not entirely sure what my timeline is going to look like, or what the major events of that timeline will be. I’m trying not to freak out about it, but rather framing it as one of those choose your adventure books where I keep flipping to different pages until I find the best possible adventure for me.

This is really just a long rambling post letting you all know that I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. Okay, glad we covered that.