A Freedom of Time

I find myself talking to friends about age a lot lately.

In almost every conversation though, I've come to realise it's not really 'age' we're talking about. It's stage.

I've always been interested by the way we talk about age, or I guess more accurately, the way we're taught to think, talk and treat our age. There are seasons we celebrate, and those we fear, milestones we long for and those we's rather not reach.

In the midst of my twenties, it's the familiar, Am-I-Doing-it-Right-Where-is-my-Life-Going-who-am-I-Becoming feeling. It's the Am-I-Living-My-Best-Life-Is-This-It-Best-Years-Of-Your-Life feeling. The Have-Fun-Be-Free-But-Be-Healthy-and-Smash-it-at-Work feeling. Don't get me wrong, I have a bit of a soft-spot for twenty-four, in fact I'd quite happily bottle this age and save it for days to come. It's a stage of life that feels full and I am incredibly thankful for that. But I am also acutely aware that I find myself and my friends circling around the very same thoughts again and again, as we correlate age and stage and the whispers of expectation that can be heard from all sides.

Resounding in every conversation, I hear a consistent narrative we all fall victim to; like a pendulum of pressure which drums against your twenties, a deep drumming beneath the surface. In many ways, we've come so far from the expectations put upon the timeline of how you live your life, especially as women. The 'timings' put upon life stages like marriage, family, career have shifted; we are collectively far more aware of a variety of life paths, and with life spanning itself longer, the milestone ages have shifted. But, expectations and norms still beat on somewhere deep beneath.

The more I journey through the beautiful messiness of life's path, the more I am learning that the tick, tick, ticking of age is constructed, and it's not how we were created to live. It's unnatural to be counting down, and it's rooted in comparison - the thief of joy.

I have friends who set off to travel the world when we were fresh out of school, and who haven't yet returned. I have friends getting married, friends starting out in first jobs, friends moving to new cities and friends moving home, friends thriving, friends struggling. The myth we need to break down is the unspoken hierarchy placed upon each of life's trajectories and to look upon each with that wonder and interest that lives lived differently deserve.

We may share a number, an age, but life has and will continue to map itself out in entirely different ways for us all. And what a beautiful thing too!

So when it feels like you're running against a clock, hold tight to the truth that life doesn't tick.

Thirty is not a destination, fifty not a crisis, eighteen and twenty-one don't have to brim with excitement and opportunity if that's not where you're at. Your age is not a measurement of your stage, and it's not a destination.

I truly believe that as we learn to life in that freedom and truth, we open our eyes to the beauty all around.