I am currently sitting in my office at a law firm in Birmingham, AL, three hours away from the city I called home for so many years. I am a 23-year-old with plans for the future that are nowhere near being fulfilled, typing my thoughts onto my MacBook in hopes that someone will read them, and wishing that DoorDash fees were cheaper. After work I’ll probably go home and attempt to decorate and tidy up my mess of an apartment, with no big Friday night plans and record player static waiting to fill my ears.

Sometimes I ask myself how I got here, as if I am not the main character experiencing everything as I go through this life. It is not what the 18-year-old version of me thought it would be, and sometimes I need to tell myself that’s okay.

I thought that I would be moving into a newly renovated house with a his and hers closet, planning a winter wedding with my high school/college sweetheart by now. It was a love story that played out resplendently in my mind, and I was close enough to reach it not too long ago. It was a beautiful love story, but it wasn’t mine to keep.

Choosing the right things for yourself can be heart-wrenching. The pain I have felt in all of my life-changes over the last year has spread inconsistently over my emotions. Some days I find reminders of the life I wanted, and I let them rest with positive comments to myself about how things just don’t work out how you’d like them to sometimes. Then there are the middle-of-the-day breakdowns that prompt me to think I made the worst mistake of my life, followed by tears and self-deprecation.

Moving on is hard. So is the idea of being only a chapter of someone else’s book when they filled all the pages in yours, the troubling feeling of hurting someone who loved and wanted you so much for so long, the reality of life moving on faster than you do. I’m thankful to have had such memorable people in my life that make goodbyes so hard. 

I’m still young. I have a mind with so much room for growth, a heart with so much love to feel, and a body ready to carry myself through ventures that I have yet to discover. Despite the uninvited thoughts that tend to creep in, I do not have to have my life figured out at 23. Not to sound like cheddar jack, but I full-heartedly believe that life is an experience without a strict, generic timeline – not a destination. The journey becomes so much richer when I think of it in that way.