Maybe I’m Not Behind

 

There is an invisible schedule I sometimes carry around in my head.

By this age, I should have done this.

I should already own that.

I should have reached this milestone, built that life, earned that much, figured this part out.

No one handed me this schedule. There are no deadlines printed on it. And yet somehow, it can feel very real.

It gets louder when I look at other people.

Someone is buying a house. Someone is traveling. Someone’s business is growing. Someone has reached the milestone I’m still working toward.

And suddenly, their progress becomes evidence that I am late.

But late for what?

We passed by this sculpture of fishermen recently, surrounded by the tall buildings of BGC.

The contrast struck me.

Behind them is a world measured in meetings, deadlines, promotions, targets and calendars.

But fishermen have always understood another kind of time.

The tide comes in.

The tide goes out.

There are seasons for going farther and seasons for staying close to shore.

You cannot hurry the tide because someone else’s boat left before yours.

And maybe life is a little more like that than the invisible schedule in my head would have me believe.

We compare milestones as though we are all traveling along the same road, starting from the same place, carrying the same things.

We aren’t.

Some years are for building.

Some are for recovering.

Some are for surviving things nobody else can see.

Some are for changing direction after realizing the destination we were rushing toward wasn’t ours in the first place.

And some seasons may look remarkably quiet from the outside while something important is taking shape underneath.

I’m beginning to wonder how much peace I have surrendered to the word should.

Where I should be.

What I should have accomplished.

Who I should have become by now.

Maybe I’m not behind.

Maybe there was never one timeline to fall behind in.

Maybe someone else reaching shore doesn’t mean I missed my tide.

Maybe I am simply living my own life at its own pace, and that is not something I need to apologize for.

The invisible schedule can wait.

I think I’d rather watch the tide.

—-

With elegance and quiet fire,
Lady E
Founder, Glow by Lady E
An editorial space for stories, art, and intentional living