Tick-tock the life clock

Time is a precious thing for me and its speed is made more and more apparent as I look back at things I thought seemed so far away when I was a child.

For instance, when I was little, the thought of finishing school seemed like a never-ending journey. I think it was around the time I graduated from Year 7 that I thought “oh great, only another five years of school to go”. How I wish I could go back and cherish the simple things that I took for granted all those years ago.

I also vividly remember thinking that I would never own a car or a house (let alone a mortgage) because you needed to be super rich to have those things. And having a baby was just mind boggling… Those were all things that you did when you were a grown up!

Now I’m nearly 30 years old and these things are my reality – all the things I never thought I would have, all the stresses I saw my parents having to deal with are now mine, too.

All the responsibilities I never thought I would have, I have now. All the time I was at school studying hard and playing sport with my friends and going to the movies on weekends – life was so carefree and simple. It’s those times that I look back on and think about how those really were some of the happiest days of my life.

It’s funny looking through the eyes of your adolescent self – everything is so much bigger (literally) and scary (also, literally!) but at least back then, time was on your side. I was able to make mistakes and learn from them, I had the luxury of changing my mind (again and again) because I was in no rush to make my mind up. I could do stupid things and be young enough to get away with it… 

I am someone who gets excited by the future no matter how scary it once seemed – I love thinking about what’s in store.

But it’s as though now that I am deemed old enough to have my s*it together the pressure is on to make decisions, have a career, start a family, and carve out a life for myself and my husband… I no longer have the luxury of taking my time because people expect that by 30, your life should have a clear direction of where it is headed. I feel like I know what I want - but then how do you ever really know?

I can only hope that the direction I am heading in is a positive one – I’ll never forget the feeling of being over-awed about how hard it must be to be a “grown up” but at least I had time to figure out how to be one… where did all those years go?