I'm done with timelines
On doing what you want. On your own terms. On your own time.
“Seven years and no ring? Red flag.”
If you scroll TikTok for too long on a random Tuesday, you’ll find yourself dwelling and thinking “damn, is this me, too?” The video showed this girl sitting in her car, talking about how “cringe” and “humiliating” it was that some women waited more than two or three years for an engagement ring. I stared at my screen and watched it twice. “Damn, this is me, too.”
By that point, I had been together with my boyfriend for almost 10 years. Marriage was something that we talked about a lot, and something that we both wanted. We would often say that if things were different (as in, if we weren’t in a long-distance relationship that almost broke us), we would probably have married earlier in our relationship, perhaps even have a baby by now. The intention felt reassuring, and imagining this life together was comforting — until it wasn’t. As months and years passed, marriage became a frustrating topic that clouded my judgment and made me bitter, sometimes even miserable. I couldn’t have a conversation about it without feeling heartbroken and betrayed. Deep down I knew we weren’t in the right place to take that step. As much as I tried to convince myself that we would make it work, I knew I didn’t want a long-distance engagement, let alone be married to someone who was here for a week, and then gone for a month. I didn’t want two homes. I didn’t want two lives. But I wanted so bad to get engaged and marry the love of my life.
Another part of myself was also desperate to feel like something wasn’t wrong with me. That I wasn’t somehow a failure for not being married. Or kind of stupid for “putting up” with what the girlies on TikTok deemed as “red flags”. When you’ve been together with someone for this long, there’s a certain expectation of how things should be, not just from yourself, but from other people too. As a woman, you also feel an added pressure to accomplish all the things that society has set for you, and fast. Sometimes, this turns into an unhealthy obsession with the should’s. “I’m almost 30, I’ve been with this persons for this long… I should be married by now. I should have a house of my own instead of renting a tiny flat. I should have a kid. Maybe two. What am I actually doing with my life?” This internal monologue becomes even worse when your friends start getting engaged and married, buying a house, having a baby, or progressing in their careers. And yes, before anyone tries to trick you into thinking you’re a horrible, selfish person, you can genuinely be happy for someone while struggling with complex feelings yourself.
There’s a quote from Conversations On Love by Natasha Lunn that says it beautifully:
Our culture makes it difficult, because everybody’s supposed to be oh so happy all the bloody time, and that isn’t who we are — we have multiple feelings. To me it’s about giving up the fantasy that everything is OK or great all the time, so that we can find a more authentic, complex way of talking about how we feel. We have to stop pretending that our lives are perfect. Then it would be easier for us to say, “I’m happy for you, but I found this really difficult because I’m having a tough time.” At the moment, I think the ersatz nature of how we’re supposed to conduct ourselves means that, when it comes to intimate friends, it’s hard for there to be space to share the whole variety of emotions. And you have to do that in order to be both separate and attached. It’s important to understand that friendships contains hope, grief, love, disappointment, conflict, pleasure and so much more.
By the time I actually stopped to process my feelings, everything that I wasn’t, and everything that I didn’t have, was already draining me mentally, emotionally, and even physically. Comparison absolutely destroyed me. I would feel triggered by everything I saw on Instagram, and then think what a horrible person I was for feeling the way that I did. I had a full on panic attack at a hen do last year. I left the club earlier and cried in the back of the Uber. It’s funny how things from your childhood come back to haunt you sooner or later in life. Like many kids, I grew up hearing how others were doing so well — and how I wasn’t, at least not compared to them. Even though I believed that I was doing the best I could, it was never enough. I also had little to no agency over myself. In the rare occasions when I did what I really wanted to do, I was met with harsh words or silent treatments. This made me an annoyingly insecure woman who lacks a lot of self-love and self-confidence, and who is never content with anything about herself.
A post by @contente.vc that reads: “I stopped comparing myself to others when I realized that a lot of people look at me and do the same — and I know that not everything is perfect here.”
It took me far too long to fully realize that obsessing over what other people are doing with their lives, and comparing where you are / what you have vs where they are / what they have, is a complete waste of precious energy and finite time. It’s absolutely pointless to spend your day feeling anxious about the future you think you should have instead of enjoying the present that is already here and already yours. Of course I knew all of this — I just wasn’t very good at taking the necessary steps to shift my mindset and breakup with the toxic pattern. It doesn’t happen overnight, but I’m done with timelines now. I’m not rushing to make my life a series of should’s anymore. I’m not looking at the things I want to achieve as a weekly to-do list that needs to be complete by 5pm or else. I’m not putting more pressure on myself to tick this or that box by the time I’m 30, and feeling like my life is less — that I’m less — if I only manage to do it at 31. I owe myself more than that.
Now that I’m five months (!!!!!) away from getting married to the kindest, most patient man in the entire universe, I have zero regrets about “waiting” nine years to get engaged. In fact, the only remorse I have is that time in Italy when I ruined a romantic dinner under the lemon tress because my boyfriend told me he wasn’t going to propose then and there. Or that time when he was here for a few days before going back to Belgium, and I spent the little time we had making a scene because I felt so humiliated for not being married yet. Or that time when we were flying to Australia and I got so sad because my expectations of finally saying “yes” to the person I love tricked me yet again. I still hurt a little when I think about the moments that were somewhat ruined by my anxiety, impatience and selfishness.
When I look back, this expectation of a certain timeline that I was so sure would make me happy was the only thing preventing me from feeling real joy. Sometimes, it’s the narrative we tell ourselves that makes us feel so anxious, so stuck, so lost. Sometimes, it’s just us projecting our own insecurities and fears. Maybe that one friend didn’t say that one thing to make us feel bad or less than them because they’re married and we’re not. Maybe that one friend of a friend didn’t look at us “funny” during that one dinner because we’ve been with the same person for so long and we still don’t have a ring. Maybe the only “red flag” is thinking that we should even care.
This was so beautiful, Mónica! Wishing you the happiest most amazing wedding!
Congratulations on your text Mónica. Being aware of what you write, and having the ability to talk about what is intimate to you in such a clear way are two clear signs of enormous maturity