If I’m going to be honest, I forgot about my five year plan somewhere around 2015. I’m not really sure where I left it, but I probably crumpled it up and forced it to fit in an old, tired part of my brain where all of my forgotten things go.

Since then, I’ve been living life without one and thank god for that. You might think I’m trying really hard to convince you of this to make myself feel better, but I’m being sincere. I’m almost 35, and I haven’t burst into flames or failed half as much as you’d think. I am not directionless, and I do have a purpose. I don’t need complicated spreadsheets and colour-coded calendars to prove it. Sometimes I find myself needing a reminder of that.

It’s so funny when I start to overthink my life, because I am the definition of the big sister friend. I am the one who is always telling people that most of these things don’t matter. It’s not that deep, life is a cycle of debt, none of this matters really- who are you competing with?

I find myself consoling my younger, panicked twenty-something friends as they worry about the dead-end of renting or a stagnant credit score. It can feel like the end of the world.

It feels as though everyone else has figured this shit out, and you tripped on a rock and fell behind in the race to the top.

Let me tell you, no one has it figured out. We’re all just winging it, and pretending we got here in the exact way we planned.

I am only human, so when I see everyone else swapping vows and sharing 12 week scans, it can make me feel like maybe I’ve got this wrong. I don’t even want those things, yet I get momentarily fooled into thinking that’s what life should be. It’s just now what I want my life to be.

Someone else’s rite of passage doesn’t feel like mine.

We all have sacred routines and worship our own gods, mine just happens to be childless and selfish. Don’t say that like it’s a bad thing.

On paper, I’m doing pretty well actually. It’s nice to remind myself that I did it without deadlines, even though I thrive working towards endings and clocks. I am a girl who works best under pressure, and the ticking in my head never really stops.

It’s so easy to feel like we’re running out of time, that the door will soon close on all of our better chances and sparkling potential. As the numbers tick down, it’s so easy to escalate towards believing that we’ll end up washed up, useless and alone.

There used to be a very straightforward path to take and I grew up thinking that I would do things a certain way.

We all do, right? It’s what we’re conditioned to obey. Our bodies were programmed to follow signs and milestones towards adulthood, and we just went along for the ride. We couldn’t wait to grow up.

There are the traditional, predictable paths we followed when we were promised a big, better life of money and houses and things. Maybe they swore this was the secret to loving men and women and babies. You’d make it one day, whatever ‘making it’ looked like for you. Whatever floats your boat or helps you sleep at night, you would have a life that felt full. You would feel rich, one way or another.

When I graduated all those years ago (2012), I had friends who carefully designed an exact pathway to get what they wanted. I can only think of one of them that actually achieved most of it on time, and even he had to adjust his expectations as his five years inched closer to the end.

We are not machines, nor are we predictable. Most of the time, we go off script and off plan. Isn’t it so annoying?

They told us dreams were pointless without a plan, and we were taught that serious planning was the key to unlocking all those big, dreamy movie montages in our heads.

A few years into my 20s, I learned that a five year plan was not going to do much except make me feel like a failure.

I started measuring myself in all new ways and none of them did me much good. It was more than measuring tapes around my waist and tracking weight gain by bra size, it became weighing and measuring every little step I took. Was this one too small, would I ever stop taking baby steps? Maybe that last one was a bit too much of a stride, I shouldn’t have overdone it. Why are my footsteps so heavy? Everyone can hear me coming. What the fuck am I going to do about my credit score? I’ll never own a house. What a fucking flop.

I had been so hungry to get out into the world and so eager to make it, whatever that means. Silly, naive little idiot. At least I was a hopeful idiot, while I could still imagine ideal worlds.

As I inched closer to my 30th birthday, I remember agonising to my therapist that I couldn’t possibly achieve all the things set out for me by ancestors, parents and society in such a short amount of time.

The thing is, I didn’t even want those things but it felt like a doomsday clock. I heard it when I brushed my teeth and made my toast. I was still rewiring my brain to think that my way wasn’t right or wrong, nor better or worse, it was simply not the same as some of my friends.

Countless people will romanticise productivity, turn to-do lists and spreadsheets and Google calendars into aspiration and aesthetics. They’ll perfect the ‘that girl’ routine, and it’ll be good for them. I’m sort of jealous of their skincare routine and meal prepping habits, I’ve always been too forgetful to commit to both. I really wish my hair did that natural bouncy curl thing that theirs does when it’s left to dry by itself, and I sometimes envy the pretty, organised way of their lives. They really seem to have it together, with all their self-care and achievements. Don’t get me wrong, some people absolutely love the grind and couldn’t be without it. I’m just saying it doesn’t work for everyone, and pretending it does is nothing but toxic.

Again, my way is neither right or wrong but I already have so many calendars and alarms. Isn’t life so tiring the more you shine, don’t you ever feel so sleepy in the sun? You can sit still and still glow, you know.

There are friends of mine who achieved all the things they should have, by the time it was expected of them. I’m sure some people are fulfilled by that, but my friends, given their backgrounds and circumstances, certainly weren’t. They didn’t find themselves complete, and they were certain they would by now. Is this really all there is?

We have this in common.

I have friends who live and die by their five year plans, even though they had to adjust them a few times. Some of them are somewhat content with having achieved what they set out to do and are now setting new goals because the work never ends and we never have enough of anything.

Don’t you see?

None of it matters, not really. It’s never enough.

It might sound facetious and as a woman past her prime womb years I can completely appreciate that the clock does really does start to tick and it follows you around. It’s in every room you walk into, staring at you from the walls. Everyone is so desperate to find out if you have a ring, if you’ve peed on a stick yet and stared at pink lines. As a woman in my mid 30s, I’m pretty familiar with the nervous alarms everyone has set for me so I don’t end up childless and lonely. I hit snooze. Over and over again.

Time keeps turning me into new ages and numbers, and I think that maybe you just have to learn to tune that out. It’s okay to be quiet, to not hear the sounds and ignore the sirens. Be selective about it, or you’ll never have a minute of peace.

It’s okay to be still and look around. If you wake up one day and it dawns on you that you’ve wasted five years just existing to meet your goals and it didn’t work out, at least it didn’t end up being six years.

We’re always trying to be more to get more. We are so transfixed with more. More is better, and more is everything. More is happy until it isn’t.

Maybe just exist and be still for a little while. Maybe live in the small moments, it’s enough. If you don’t look up from all your plans, how will you ever know if a disaster is swirling in your skies? An architect always needs to look up at the skyline, and they might even see something else they need to build instead. That other skyscraper of yours can wait. You’ve got brand new cities and a whole life waiting for you.

If you don’t look up, these years will float away. You’ve got miles to go, and you’re missing it.

A fact I cannot avoid is that I am terribly out of pace with some of my friends and strangers my own age. A friend of mine was telling me how her and her husband are the only couple out of their married friends that have yet to have children. She’s only 34.

We talked about how it feels like getting left behind, and debated what she wanted. Was this something she really wanted, or was this just because it’s what life had promised to her when she took her vows? Did we ever truly decide on wanting the things we are so jealous of? Sometimes we just assumed that we wanted them. It was always the norm, and probably always will be. The idea of it all is so romantic, I guess.

The truth is, she’ll be a great mother- no matter when it happens. For me, I know it’s not on the cards and it’s always just been something I’ve known. I’ve never even doubted it. But I’m good with it. I think I’d feel empty if I did the things that made them feel whole, each to their own.

Truthfully, I am also nauseated by the idea of changing my bills to say ‘Mrs’, or changing any part of my name for that matter. Identity is so important to me, and while I know a wedding ring does not erase the me that came before a vow, I would prefer to keep myself mine. I worked so hard to build her and look after her for all this time. I know, I can keep my name and I don’t have to wear a ring but still, the expectation is there and that’s what I think about when I think about cutting cake and confetti.

Whether you have it all or not, I think we’re all faced with the same gnawing disappointment from time to time. No one wants to admit it, because that would tear our structures down and upset a lot of people who do feel fulfilled in the things we doubt.

Is this all there is?

We all feel like teenagers again at times, wondering if this is all life had planned for us. Wasn’t there meant to be more?

We know it wasn’t meant to feel this way. They promised.

Eventually, we realise it’s a trick and we’ve been swindled. It was a long con played beautifully. They got us.

When the jig is up, the solution is obvious. Break your plans like their promise, because what else can you do? Burn your planners, abandon the spreadsheets, and stop living life always working for the next thing.

You have the wits and the means to defeat it, it just means throwing out the structure you’ve been taught your entire life. The structure is trusted, I know. They tell you it’s tried and tested. It gets you places, or so we’re told.

For me, my path was less of a well lit street and more like bumpy cobblestones in winding alleyways. Now, that was not without its problems and I am a little weathered, but do you know what? I have seen some things in dark lanes and bumpy side streets. Some good, some bad, and some a little ugly. I like to think it makes me well rounded, as I may not have learned half the lessons I did had I followed some self imposed route to traditional success and textbook love stories.

My life has been full of love, it’s been shaken by loss and burned down time and time again. I am a woman who has found peace in her earthquakes, and no plan on earth could have done that for me.

Of course it’s important to know what you want, and have some sort of idea of the path you want to take. What is absolutely impossible is to line that path the way you want it, time the clocks just so, and vanquish any obstacle that jumps out at you from the bushes.

A five year plan can absolutely be a guide, but maybe it can be a map rather than holy scripture. Maps get redrawn when routes and landscapes change, nothing is set in stone forever.

Naturally anxious, you would presume that a meticulous plan to combat all the mess of life would soothe me. You see the thing is, I tried living according to a plan before, I beat myself up when I was poor and struggling to make my way in the world. Plans did not help, they just wasted my ink. The reality is that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve had to loosen my grip. I can’t control everything, and the things they want me to control, won’t matter all that much to me in the end.

Sure, I have a pension and life insurance and a mortgage, which is more than a lot of people, I admit. I now care less about my credit rating, and I don’t flinch when I open my credit card statements anymore. They’ll get paid, one way or another. Even if I’m dead, none of it really matters. No one is going to remember my credit limit, my bills or my salary. I probably won’t even make it to retirement.

The deadlines and plans don’t matter. Sure, some people need more direction and structure than others, but for me, I just realised I was the only person who cared so much about where I was in my life. At 25 years old in 2015, I was still a newborn adult and there was so much waiting for me. It was foolish to force myself into meeting deadlines that nobody except for me cared about. No one else was clocking my time or tracking my distance. I’d get where I needed to be, one way or another. These things come out in the wash.

It sounds so basic, but just do what you need to do.

Trust me, no one will care about the interest rate of your first mortgage, or the time you stayed at your first grown up job. It’s all erratic and short lived, but it feels like the apocalypse. There’ll be plenty more to come. Life is chaotic, and no amount of planning, budgeting or self-improvement will stop it from coming for you.

It just feels like the end of the world, but after it happens a few times you’ll know how to keep the ground steady. This is not your end of days. This apocalypse is arbitrary. You can always start again.

You’ve still got your nine lives, you’ll see.