I suspect that most people expect to have our lives together by the age of thirty. Despite the belief that we knew everything as a teenager, we were still children. And while technically an adult by twenty, we were just trying to figure out who we were. If you were anything like me that involved lots of booze, bars and boys. So you figure by thirty we should totally have our shit together. Which is why it hit me like a ton of bricks that I was nowhere near where I thought I should be when I turned thirty.
From overachiever to college dropout
I went through a slow transition from being a high achieving, “gifted” student as a kid to a slacker, college dropout, party girl in my early twenties. There’s a number of issues, life circumstances, and complicated psychological explanations for the change. Mostly though, it started as normal teenage rebelliousness. I was overwhelmed and exhausted from years of pushing myself to be the perfect student. Sometime in middle school I started realizing I didn’t have to be. While most of my classmates competed for spots in the city’s top high schools, I couldn’t care less.
More concerned with learning things I was interested in and that would actually be useful, I chose a vocational high school with a business program. The first couple years, I established myself as a top student and teacher favorite without much effort. By junior year I got away with pretty much anything and went into full slacker mode. I could skip classes for days, sometimes even weeks, making up whatever work I missed and still be at the top of the class.
I went to college because it was what I was supposed to do next. I’d been coasting by with minimal effort so long, it hit me hard that I had to actually work for good grades in college. Instead of buckling down, I distracted myself having the time of my life. A couple months into my sophomore year, I realized I was wasting my time. More importantly, I was unhappy and homesick. I dropped out and moved back home. The next few years were a wild ride, but it was damn fun, and I have no regrets.
It takes as long as it takes
I’d always intended on going back to school. But it took longer than I’d anticipated. Partly because I was busy living the party girl life, falling in love, and working to pay off bills. But also lingering just below the surface was the fear of failing, again. When I did go back, I started off slow, just dipping my toes in the water with a class or two a semester at a community college. The fear faded quickly as I both enjoyed classes and excelled. My original goal was to at least get an Associate degree. In the years it took, my life had changed significantly and I was able to continue going to school full time to get my Bachelors. If you combine all the time I spent in college, it took nearly a decade for me to complete a “four year degree.”
At the time it didn’t it didn’t seem that long. I was more than happy taking my time, enjoying the experience and getting the most out of it. Then suddenly I wasn’t in my twenties anymore and didn’t feel much like a real functioning adult. (Technically I still don’t but that’s not the point.) I felt like I was behind in life with a long road ahead to reach any of my goals. Honestly, I’m not even sure I knew what those goals were, but knew I had to get working on them asap.
The next few years (or possibly decade) I was a hot mess. I’d go all in on a new creative project or a specific area of the writing field, then give up when progress or success didn’t come fast enough. That was of course followed by periods of beating myself up because I wasn’t as far along as I thought I should be. Then a couple years ago I read a single sentence in a newsletter that helped me put things in perspective. “Things take as long as they’re going to take.”
I want to say it clicked right away, but it was a slow progression in the way I thought about my progress. Looking back I could see that I didn’t just do a lot of random stuff that led nowhere, I’d built up a body of work. While it was varied and not always in line with what I wanted to do, it still counted. It can still be hard sometimes seeing successful 30 under 30 lists or hearing about somebody decades younger than me publishing bestsellers. However, I’ve learned to accept that I took the best path for me and am exactly where I need to be in life. It’s not a race and there is no definition of success other than I want it to be.
Do you ever feel behind in life?
Let me know in the comments if you’ve ever struggled with something similar. I’d love to know first that I’m not alone, and second how you deal with these difficult feelings. Do you let it get you down or have you found a way to get past it?