how2notdieblog

You’re living. ❤️

Life has a funny way of handing us experiences nobody gave us an instruction manual for.

And maybe one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in figuring out how to not die is this:

stop measuring your life against somebody else’s timeline

There is no timeline.

And I think we need to say that more often.

There is something incredibly beautiful about the traditional path.

Finish high school. Go to college. Graduate. Meet your person somewhere along the way. Build a career. Get married. Start a family. Buy the house. Raise the babies. Grow together.

That life is beautiful.
It deserves to be celebrated.

But it is not the only beautiful life.

There is also something beautiful about the zigzag.

About taking longer to finish school because life happened.

About changing careers.

About starting over.

About collecting passport stamps instead of wedding invitations for a while.

About going to therapy.

About healing.

About rebuilding relationships with yourself, your body, your family, your ambitions, and the world around you.

About sitting at a table for one and never even considering that it’s an empty table…

There are BIG lessons in being alone.

There are big lessons in doing things nontraditionally.

And there are enormous lessons hidden inside the trials that make one person’s journey a little more jagged than someone else’s.

I’m 32.

I don’t have plans right now to get married.
I’m not pursuing a relationship.
I don’t have plans to start a family.

And despite having a strong maternal instinct and loving the idea of those things *someday*, I don’t feel like I’m waiting for my “real life” to begin.

My real life is already happening. And I’m enjoying it. I didn’t imagine, as a kid, that I’d be an adult with chronic illness. But it’s not delaying my life. It doesn’t define who I am… it didn’t diminish who I was. It’s just another layer of what makes me … me.

This season has been about expanding my world.

Pursuing my education.
Adding stamps to my passport.
Traveling.
Spending more time with my family.
Healing.
Going to therapy.
Taking care of my mental and physical health.
Recovering from some really difficult chapters.
Building a career and a life that mean something to me.

And maybe one day, the path changes again. I look forward to new zigzags.

Maybe love shows up.
Maybe family looks different than I once imagined.
Maybe life surprises me completely.

Maybe one day I get to be a mom to a human (my dog-hter is absolutely my first child).

Wonderful!

But I’m not standing at the train station staring at the clock wondering when my life is going to arrive.

I’m already on it. ❤️

And so are you!

There is no prize for reaching life’s milestones in the “right” order. There. Is. No. Right. Order.

There is no one age when you should have the degree, the spouse, the children, the house, the career, or the perfectly organized five-year plan.

Some lives are straight lines.

Some are switchbacks.

Some of us apparently took the scenic route, stopped for snacks, changed destinations twice, watched the fireworks over Magic Kingdom from their backyard every night for 8.5 years, and somehow acquired a completely different itinerary. 😂 🎆 🏰

None of those paths are inherently more worthy than another. So much can change our paths. So much can make our journey different than someone else’s.

Divorces happen.

Relationships end.

Debt happens.

Traumatic events happen!

Diagnoses happen.

Mental health happens!

Miscarriages happen.

Layoffs happen.

Loss of loved ones happens!

Houses burn down.

Jobs are lost.

Best friends pass away.

So much can “derail” or change someone’s path or plan. And there’s nothing wrong with going through these things, pivoting, dusting yourself off, and rearranging your goals and priorities based off of what suits you in that season.

So, yes, celebrate the people building beautiful lives in a traditional order.

But don’t forget to celebrate the people building beautiful lives completely out of order.

Especially yourself.

You’re not late.

You’re living. ❤️

Maybe that’s another lesson in how not to perish…

You don’t have to arrive where everyone else is going. You don’t have to take the same paths, make the same decisions, or even have the same goals.

You just have to build a life you actually want to be alive for. ❤️