Life is a funny thing, as we all walk similar paths, yet take slightly different routes. When you are young, you assume you are always all on the same path, walking at the same pace, to arrive at the same destinations, at the same times. I suppose, in a way, it does start like that as we travel through our school journeys with familiar faces and combined paces. Then seemingly suddenly, we ae thrust into the real world and all seem to scatter.
If you are as lucky as I am, there will be a select few from these years that you manage to hold onto, and maintain a friendship with, but the ones you lose along the way might have suddenly seemed to be going places at a much faster speed than you yourself are travelling. This is probably when you start having those niggling feelings of feeling left behind.
Once we are thrust into the real world, and become adults in a legal sense, suddenly there is this pressure and just like that, the race is on! The question remains…. The race to what? Some are chasing fame and fortune, while others are running down the aisle towards marriage and children. Many are off getting fancy degrees and qualifications, or even leaving school early to chase apprenticeships in trades. A good few take off on travelling adventures, committed to seeing and experiencing the world before settling down. A lot are moving out and testing their independence either with friends or partners, playing house. So if you happened to be someone who continued working at your same part time job, playing video games and living at home with no real direction…. It’s probably a safe bet to say you did feel left behind, and I am willing to put money on it that your parents or guardians weren’t shy in pointing this out to you!
Typically, and eventually, it can be safely assumed everyone finds their feet in the end, and makes new friends in similar places in their lives, which, with any luck, quietens that little voice telling you that you aren’t keeping up with the crowd… mostly because the crowd you are now running with appear to be on the same path and again at the same pace. But, before you know it, suddenly you are 30. Your high school reunion is coming up, and those self-doubts start creeping in again. Everyone is so much more successful than you. The fat kids lost the weight, while you gained it. The nerds are all CEO’s or important well paid scientists and engineers, doctors and architects. The tradies all have businesses of their own. The travellers have lived abroad and seem worldly and more mature. 50% of your peers have children, and 75% of them have mortgages. It feels like 100% of them have partners.
While you look forward to catching up with your old crew again and seeing where life took them over the years, it is hard not to compare yourself and find yourself lacking in one area or another…. Or maybe all of them. What you don’t realise is that the ones who have successful careers, perhaps feel left behind by the ones with children. The ones with children wish they could travel. The ones who travel wish they had the financial security. The ones who are renting envy the ones who are homeowners, while the home owners are struggling to make ends meet and wish they had the doctors salary……
That’s the thing with feeling left behind. I actually think we all feel it at one stage or another. Regardless of all the things we have, all the things we have achieved and accomplished, there is probably always something we were hoping we would have by now that we haven’t managed. And it is SO easy to forget that the story hasn’t ended yet! Because in the next 10 to 20 years, many will divorce, children grow up, properties get sold or fold, people give up jobs to return to study, while others retire early. A few become young grandparents, hopefully less end up in prison and some are diagnosed with cancers and other diseases, or become disabled.
I don’t say this in order to insinuate we should wish the worst for people or celebrate their misery and misfortune, I say it to remind us that nobody knows the future, and while it might seem like you have it worse, that is not always the case. And who said you need to be a doctor with a white picket fence house on a big block with a swimming pool, 2 kids, pets and tropical vacations to be considered happy and successful anyway? Isn’t it ok if you are happy being single, or don’t want to have children, or prefer to rent a nice place that you could never afford to buy yourself? If you are happy working in an average quiet 9-5 job, or a stay at home parent or living alone with 10 cats, why does that make you feel less than someone who has a different life? Firstly, you don’t know if they are happy with that life, and if they are, and you are, then what is the issue?
These feelings don’t entirely go away either. I remember a friend feeling left behind when I had my firstborn, and then another friend followed suit soon after. This was despite the fact that the friend feeling left behind had no desire to have children and was perfectly happy without them. But, I suppose I now understand, that she knew family life would take us in different directions and she was probably going to lose the close connections there as we had less in common now than before. Similarly, as my children are teenagers, and the mortgage is nearly paid, I look forward to travel and renovations and moving into the next phase of life, however, there is a sense of loss about friends who are still looking to have babies or get married and settle down. Because I know their path will take them away from mine.
Sometimes when we feel left behind by our friends, we fail to realise that we aren’t left behind, as much as we aren’t actually travelling the same road. That happiness looks different to each of us, and the only thing we will all have in common one day, if we are lucky enough to get there, is being old. As the Buzz Luhrmann song “everybody’s free (to wear sunscreen)” points out so eloquently “Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long, but in the end, it’s only with yourself.”
If you are happy where you are in life, then embrace that, and if you do feel behind, it might be because you aren’t happy. If there are things you can change or control, then change them. And if there are things you wanted, that you can’t have, and it is out of your control, please find solace in knowing that everybody has things they wanted but didn’t get. Stop telling yourself everyone else has what you want, or that everyone else is happier than you. We all carry something heavy we acquired along the way, which is why we need our friends to help us carry them.
Lastly, if a friend takes a path away from yours, to follow their dreams, find ways to be a part of their happiness, or let them go on ahead with nothing but love and well wishes. They aren’t so much leaving you behind as they are pushing forward towards a separate goal from your own. Maybe it is time for you to do the same towards your own new goal, whatever that may be?
❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx
