Falling Behind as Friends Move Forward

I am 26, and with every passing day, it starts to look like I’m the only one who’s not on the move. Friends I’ve known since high school are getting married, having kids, and settling into their careers while I am still playing video games and enjoying hobbies sometimes way too befitting for a teenager.

Recently, I heard that one of my close friends was going to be a father at age 27. I have been with him since we were kids messing around, and now he is going to start a family. That just blew my mind. Another one is going to propose to his over-six-year-long girlfriend, moving toward something meaningful and life-changing. I relate a lot with him, but at this point, it’s almost as though he’s entering this phase of life that’s utterly beyond me.

It is hard each and every time not to feel left behind whenever I watch friends transition into these big, more “adult” roles. I know it is hard not to compare myself to them. It’s not like things have been going great for me as far as romantic relationships go; often, I find myself wondering if I’ll ever attain these milestones they now reach. The longer that fact has sat in my brain, the more I feel like I am falling behind and the more self-loathing starts to enter in.

What’s worse is I know this is only the beginning. I know that with increased age, more of my friends will get married, have families, and withdraw into their lives. I can already vaguely envision it-how weekends that once used to be so compacted with various activities and hangouts sometimes become fewer and farther between, the loneliness that accompanies it all almost not bearable at times. I know that it comes with growing up, but that still hurts.

It leads me to reflect on what I could do to give myself a purpose. I feel stuck in this rut of the feeling that nothing is a task or has meaning for which I have something tangible. Things I do for fun seem to distract me from the seriousness of something else. But I have no idea what that thing is-what something “bigger” might be.

I try not to compare my life with theirs, but it is hard not to. I want to be mobile too, to know somehow in my life that I am doing something worthwhile. It’s just that for now, I am really not sure what that way is. I do not want to be left behind while everyone else is moving on to the next stage of their life and leaving me in its dust.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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