Lists are stupid
Bear with me here. Not all lists, but you know those lists that say things like, by 25 you should have a savings account, a great pair of heels and a red lipstick you love. Or by the time you hit 40 you should've traveled to Machu Picchu, ridden a mechanical bull and learned how to handle your liquor. Those lists. Those lists are stupid. Those lists imply that someone somewhere dictated some timeline by which we're all supposed to achieve things that many people couldn't care to achieve. Who made them king of the universe? And more importantly, who needs that kind of fake pressure?
Space time continuum
Life is hard enough without feeling like there are specific things you're supposed to achieve by certain dates. Our lives are not the lives of others, so these arbitrary rules about when certain things should happen in your life are utter nonsense and frankly unhelpful.
Even these memes or quotes about which famous person achieved wealth or fame late in life, not helpful.
Maybe I don't want either of those things. So implying like "it's ok, honey, there's still time" is a backhanded way of still applying pressure. It's like saying, even though you haven't done this yet, you still can.
Well maybe I don't want to Becky!
Leave me alone to live in my sweatpants and hate watch And Just Like That. (girl, we could get into this forever, I mean that show is a trainwreck).
How I feel after every episode
Flowers bloom, people don't
I saw something recently praising late bloomers. Ugh. I'd just like to say, for the record, there's no timeline for which someone should bloom. In fact, as I mentioned, people don't bloom, vegetation does. Late blooming suggests there's a norm for when we do certain things, but I call BS. Other than perhaps walking and talking (and even that timeline is super flexible), people are uniquely them and their circumstances are uniquely them. Not allowing people to find their own path, or suggesting there's some path we all should take, is simply a need to create uniformity in a world where there shouldn't be any. I often talk about how you are your own solo experience and that's something to be celebrated. So if you're 60 and just figuring out your life or you're 16 and already have it figured out, you're doing you. That's the timeline for you and no one else. There's another writer who I quite admire and she does similar work to me. Her story is always touted as someone who "didn't make her first million until 50." Well, I'll be 50 in two months and I'm nowhere near that milestone. A milestone that may never happen for me, might not be something I want and again, was dictated as a milestone I should achieve by whom exactly?
Just stay hydrated
The thing with vegetation, and people, is that if we just stay hydrated, if we get the food, water and sunlight we need, we'll continue to grow. We may bloom here and there, we may lose petals and we might wilt pretty often, but luckily, we're still alive.
People aren't annuals, we're perennials. If we're lucky, we "last or exist for a long or infinite time." We're "enduring or continually recurring." That's the type of definition I want to ascribe to myself.
I last and endure.
Because this sh%t is hard! And what makes it harder is putting fake pressure to achieve fake things upon people who were perfectly happy just lasting for a long time.
So I want you to be exactly the type of person you are. To not worry about the timetables and timelines of others and to just keep existing and enduring. Of course I hope you do get to bloom occasionally and that happens more than wilting, but when you wilt, you might just need some more food, water and sunlight.
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