You Are Not Running Late To Your Own Life
You scroll past another engagement photo
another house key selfie
another baby in a pumpkin with a caption that sounds like a brag and a prayer
Meanwhile you are on your couch in the same sweatpants three days running
waiting for noodles to boil
wondering if you missed some secret stairs
Everyone from high school seems married, promoted
relocated, looking all sorted in their glossy feeds
You look around your studio with its thrift store lamps and half finished art and think “I am thirty something and still barely meeting my own needs.”
Your family drops hints in group chats about cousins with their second kid
their third degree
their second mortgage and their massive grill
You send emojis, shrug off questions
then lie awake at night replaying every fork in your road where you zigged instead of climbing their hill
You imagine an invisible clock over your head counting down to some deadline you never agreed to meet
As if a committee somewhere decided when you should fall in love
buy a house, get promoted
and squeeze yourself into their tidy little street.
You treat your life like a train schedule you missed
pacing some mental platform while everyone else speeds by
You forget that nobody handed you a ticket or a map or a timetable
this whole story is mostly guesswork and nerve
Time is not a cop
it is just a thing clocks do on the wall while you figure out what you actually deserve.
You are not running late to your own life
there is no bell that rings
No trophy for the first one to get burnt out with a marriage they never wanted and all their shiny things
You get to love slow, learn late, restart at forty
change majors at thirty five
scrap the script and write the rest
You are not running late to your own life
you are right on time for the person you still have not fully met in your own breast.
Think about all the shit you survived while everyone else posed for milestone photos in matching outfits under soft golden light
Bad apartments, worse bosses, emergency rooms
grief that knocked years off your face overnight
The fact that you are still here, still weird
still curious enough to question the checklist
counts for more than their staged yard shot
You learned things the hard way that they never had to face
built muscles in your soul they never got.
There is a kid self who thought thirty meant sorted
steady, respectable, some sitcom ending in neat clothes
If that kid could see you now
broke and tired and still fighting for joy like a feral cat in a back alley
they would probably lose their nose
Then they would say “holy shit
you made it this far without giving up
and you still watch cartoons
you are one of the heroes.”
You are not running late to your own life
there is no bell that rings
No trophy for the first one to get burnt out with a marriage they never wanted and all their shiny things
You get to love slow, learn late, restart at forty
change majors at thirty five
scrap the script and write the rest
You are not running late to your own life
you are right on time for the person you still have not fully met in your own breast.
One day you will sit in some kitchen that finally feels like yours
with plants that did not die and mugs you chose on purpose
Maybe alone
maybe with someone who gets your dark jokes and your panic and still reaches for your hand across the surface
You will think about right now and want to hug this frantic self who thought they blew it
who thought they lost the circus
You will know the twist: nothing was wasted
all those side quests and wrong turns shaped the self that showed up for this service.
You are not running late to your own life
you are early for some chapters that have not even been drafted in your head
You can quit, reroute, try again, go back to school
stay single forever with three dogs in your bed
You owe no explanation to anyone taking attendance on milestones that never fed you
never bled, You are not running late to your own life
you are the only one who gets to call this story misled.
Next time your chest tightens when someone says “by your age I had
” Take a breath, bite back the apology
and answer in your skull, “By my age I survived me
that is enough, I am not late, I am just not done yet.”