My best friend sent me a text this morning…her son is starting his Junior year of high school. Its truly difficult for me to wrap my brain around this, when I think of him I remember a toddler playing in the living room. My friend and I are a year and a half apart and she is two years away from having raised a human completely on her own. I, on the other hand, have not even started a family yet.
Why am I telling you this? My heart is to remind people to live THEIR life, not the life other people think they should live. I will be 34 in a few weeks time and I am single, and childless, and that is okay. I wish that all of us would just live our lives as fully as we possibly can and stop worrying so much about how we think we “should” live our lives. Stop comparing your journey with others. Its YOURS. You own it. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Sure, there are times I’m sad that I haven’t married my person and that I don’t have kids but I am also incredibly proud of myself and what I have accomplished on my own. I wanted to be educated, I finished my masters degree almost 10 years ago. I wanted to invest in a career, I just received a promotion. I wanted to own a home, I bought one last year. There were times in my life when I was waiting on everything to come together before I did anything, literally just waiting. What was I waiting for? Honestly, much of the time I was waiting on my person to come along.
What I want for each of us, is to live full, happy lives. No matter what stage of life we are in. What we all need to remind ourselves of is the fact that there is good in every stage. Often, when you get to the next stage, you miss the one you were in before. How many of you have missed being in college at least once? When we were there we couldn’t wait to get out. How many of you sweet mamas have longed for one of your quiet, single nights at home on the couch…where laundry and taking care of others wasn’t a thing yet. The stage of life you are in now, is a stage of life you were once waiting for. The point is, this is your life. Today, right now. This is just a stage in your life. If its a good stage, I hope it lasts a long time, if its a hard stage I hope it passes quickly. All I know for sure is that either way, it will change. You’re going to miss this. Don’t beat yourself up over where you think you should be. Just be present where you are.
