There was something I did not know when I was young but know very well now. In our lives and usually beyond our bidding, there is a time and place for everything. Finding out what works for you in whatever time and place you are in at the moment is the challenge. 

There are distinct phases in our lives but they don’t present as some kind of script to follow. Something about the zeitgeist shifts around us as we come up to and pass certain milestones. High school graduation, as an example.

In the weeks and months leading up to that event, there is much activity and preparation. Not only for the exams and essays required to get you past the graduation finish line but much thought and preparation has been invested into what you will do afterward.

Take the summer off or work to earn some coin in the local supermarket? Take a whole gap year and travel the world before you settle into full-time studies or an entry-level position in the career of your choosing? Or spend your time sowing some wild oats and grabbing what little is left of childhood freedoms before the responsibilities of adulthood kick in?

I remember the subtle but significant pressures that kicked in at various stages and with every passing year when I was young. Family members can say tons without saying anything much of anything at all. “So, how’s your love life?” the jovial uncle might ask when you are obviously still very much single.

“I hope your parents live long enough to become grandparents,” the jovial uncle’s wife – my aunt by marriage – chimes in with a chuckle and the mildest hint of a harumph. 

I felt a subtle shift and FOMO (“fear of missing out”) kick in when my younger sisters had children and I had none. Let me emphasize here that FOMO is an extraordinarily stupid reason for choosing a mate and having children. I believe many do it though, but call it something else.

Shortly after my marriage imploded, I opined that I had put more thought into choosing carpet colors than choosing my children’s father. In my defense, I didn’t know then what I know now. But damn. Take about hasty and flakey decision-making. At that time, generally, I was paying more attention to others’ expressed needs and wishes than I was to my own.

Life set out to teach me fundamental lessons after that which, up until that point, I had blithely ignored. More telling, I believed certain expectations didn’t apply to me. I mentioned before the messages we got as children about being “special.” The rules that applied to mere mortals didn’t apply to me. Hubris is an ugly and limiting affliction.

I got schooled. Big time. I didn’t understand what this strange yearning was that in the weeks leading up to delivery that made me want to create a safe and orderly home for my infant child. And so I learned about nesting. 

So while I went through most of the so-called normal benchmarks of adult life, it was never on a path I felt that I was choosing freely. That’s a great form of denial and I was pretty good at that. 

I had missed out on the steady guidance of healthy female role models I assume other women had. My mother abdicated her role as a mother early in my existence and struck up a close relationship with pills of her choosing. 

Other potential role female models in my life died too soon or otherwise faded from my life. In any case, when it came to the finer points of parenting, and specifically mothering, I was woefully unprepared.

I do not recommend entering parenting without some sort of stable and viable support system. Independence is great but its allure tanks dramatically when a helpless human being needs you 24/7. I believe people couple up as much for someone else to cover diaper duty as for the deep emotional and social satisfaction of having a life partner. 

In a similar way, subtle hints come along in life’s journey to move you forward. Time to go for that promotion or look for another job. Time to move house or even move out of your community. Time to move on from any unsatisfactory situation, whether personal or professional. A wake-up call behooves you to focus on your health and well-being above all other considerations. If we aren’t here on the planet, or struggling to physically make it through our daily lives, all other considerations are moot. 

By a certain age, we start to look back and see how our own lives were shaped by variations on all of these themes. Choices we did and didn’t make. Opportunities we did or didn’t accept. I once read that we all must make most important life decisions with insufficient data and limited foresight. And sometimes we deliberately choose to abandon reason, flout the rules, and go with our gut.

A favorite saying of mine is about second (or third or fourth) marriages. They have been described as “a triumph of hope over experience.” There are certain variables that even the most carefully laid out life trajectory can flout: love and longing and desire. The heart wants what it wants.

If the allure of “the road less traveled” appeals to you on some deep level, you may understand what I’m talking about. Or if, in fact, you have taken an alternate path in your own life, you understand what that means in your very bones. And you may be happier than many.

Whatever the outcome, choosing to live life at your own speed and at your own pace may land you in a place of your own making. That can make a significant difference in how you see your life looking backward. And forward, too, if you are brave enough to follow that path.

There is no time limit on courage regardless of the time and place you are in at the moment.