It was the millionth time I had said to my best friend “I feel like I’m on a hamster wheel” everyone is moving forward and I’m not. This time, I was so bored with what I was hearing. I was so bored with talking about this, with feeling this way. I did not want this to be the way I saw my life. I did not want “stuck” to be the role I played. I had made “being behind” a part of my identity that even when things were progressing, I was still competing with a version of myself which was just never going to happen. The version of myself who thought all these things would happen by different ages. I would always be behind if I kept competing with that concept of time. I have always been a dreamer. The kind of person who asks questions about everything. And over time, getting curious about how to feel like myself again became more interesting than staying obsessed with why it seemed like everyone else had moved forward while I was standing still. It was not a magical overnight change. But little by little, I stopped identifying as someone who was spinning in place, even when it still felt like I was. Life in your 30s, feeling behind, on your own timeline