not how i planned it

Some days, I feel inadequate. As I consider the lives of friends—with their consistently-forward motion and their big-life-decision-making—I can’t help but feel that I’m falling behind.

Some days, I breathe a sigh of relief, and settle in to the freedom my life affords me.

Lately, it’s been more of the former, an overwhelming anxiety about my uncertain future and a sense that I’m not where I should be right now.

My friends are engaged, or they’re married already. They’re soon-to-be-lawyers and soon-to-be-teachers. They’re mothers. They’re pregnant. They’re actresses wowing the world (or Chicago, as it were) with their talent.

Sometimes it seems like I can’t quite keep up.

And the truth is sometimes I’m not sure that I want to.

Marriage and children. Courtrooms and classrooms. I know I’m not cut out for any of it. But, in spite of that knowledge, I feel pressure to impress, to legitimize my seemingly meaningless life somehow. Because writing about kissing and cake and whiskey consumption—fun as it is—doesn’t do much to justify my existence.

The frustration lies in not knowing what I want, in feeling paralyzed by uncertainty and apprehension. In the fear that I’m taking too long to decide.