Life is passing you by...

[Confused5433]

Do you ever get that overwhelming feeling that life is passing you by. Everything around you just moves so fast, and you thought you had the time to do certain things, but then you realize that you're getting older and you need to hurry up and make things happen before you get too old.

 

I'm months away from hitting 30 and starting a new chapter in life. I haven't dated in well over 4yrs. All my closest friends are married, thinking about children and just moving along. I, on the other hand, haven't had the blessing of finding someone special yet. I get remarks from family and co-workers that it's about time I get married, and need to have children before my mid 30s.

 

It's crazy!! I'm content with my life and what I have accomplished in these last years (jet setting the world, half marathongs, professional growth, etc)

But I must admit, the only thing missing is my second half. I feel it deeply, and as time goes by I worry a little, and wonder if it will ever happen to me.

 

Never have I thought of myself as getting older, but it's starting to happen and the people I have been attracted to are 4 or more year younger than me.

Did I totally miss the train??! I look in the mirror, and I do see the fact that I am changing and I missed out having a real and true relationship in my 20s.

 

I always said, since I was a teen, that I would marry in my 30s, but now I wished I would have said in my late 20s. It's becoming true, but there is nothing to look forward to, and I'm a little scared.

 

Anyone felt the same way.

[USMCHokie]

Yes.

 

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[griffinchicken53]

someone else might can give better advice, but i will tell you, you aren't alone.

i worry about the same things, i'm 31 and haven't been on a date in 10 years. i think to myself, if i couldn't attract someone in my 20s, how am i supposed to attract someone now. i'm seeing a few gray hairs pop up and feel it is all downhill from here.

 

i have friends who are married with kids and spend their nights at home with a movie, other friends who are dating/girlfriends only do social things with other couples so i don't get included.

it's a saturday night, i sat in front of the computer while others are with other people and i'm alone. i feel like crying sometimes because of that.

don't give up though. people meet others at different ages. it used to be the norm that you'd get married young and have kids before you were 25. then it got to be mid 30s. some people don't have kids til in their 40s.

[Nightsky]

I think you just have to try and be happy with where you are. Live in the here and now. Don’t regret the past or be afraid of your future. Live now. You got this!

[january2011]

I'm older than you and I don't feel like life is passing me by. I'm really rather enjoying how things are at the moment. Perhaps, at some point in the future, I will look back and think I was delusional but right now, it feels right and feels good to be where I am.

 

When I was younger, I wanted to get married by the time I was 27, have at least one child by the time I was 30 and another after a couple years. None of that happened, despite being in an LTR at the right time.

 

I made different life choices.

 

It's okay to want a special someone in your life but it's also okay to make the most of your singledom by doing all the amazing things that you've done.

 

I do urge you to consider carefully before jumping on the next available train, just because it stops at your station. In my experience, desperation has never lead to great life choices, resulting in unfulfilling and unsatisfactory post-hoc rationalisations.

[Eeyore79]

Do you ever get that overwhelming feeling that life is passing you by. Everything around you just moves so fast, and you thought you had the time to do certain things, but then you realize that you're getting older and you need to hurry up and make things happen before you get too old.

Yep, I know the feeling. I'm in my thirties and still unmarried with no children; some of my friends are celebrating their tenth wedding anniversary and their kids are starting high school! In my twenties I wasn't lucky enough to meet someone I loved who also loved me, and I wasn't prepared to settle because I thought I still had time to meet someone, so I was still single when I turned thirty.

 

Even though a lot of my friends are married or in relationships and have kids, I'm still glad I didn't follow their example. I know that at least some of them settled for partners who they weren't really in love with just because they wanted to get married or were pregnant, and some of them settled for partners who were in situations that I'd consider to be less than ideal. I know that some of them have rocky relationships, and some of them have even separated from the mom/dad of their kids and moved on to new relationships. I wouldn't want the relationships that the majority of them have. I held out for a loving, stable relationship with someone I genuinely loved and wanted to spend the rest of my life with, and aged 31 I was lucky enough to meet a great guy who I'm still dating.

[Leeway Harris]

I can certainly relate to this feeling. Nobody can say about me that I've just sat back and watched others live their lives without doing anything with my own. I've tried a lot of things and had lots of great experiences. But I've always felt unfulfilled in some way, and I feel like I'm not living life to its full potential.

 

One area that I really feel I'm missing out on is social relationships. A lot of my friends from college are married with kids as well, and now that I'm 35 I'm starting to feel like I'm running out of time. I have issues with self-worth (apparently like a lot of people here) and that really holds me back in this area. All I can do is work on these issues and hope I can get right with myself before it's too late to settle down with someone and be happy.

[smile95]

I feel exactly this same way and I am 34. I can support myself and really am happy alone and do not NEED a man, but I do want to find the right person. I get sad seeing my friends and family happily married, but I also have unhappily married friends...I have to think that we will meet them one day. i really want kids and my clock is ticking, so lately, I have been a little stressed over this. I try to have faith though...

 

I read a lot of posts about this and it makes me feel a little better to know I am not alone...

 

Hang in there!

[Hibou]

I know how you feel! I often will hit some kind of milestone and realize that time is moving. The thing about those comments about having kids is, if you answer by saying that you're accomplishing a lot in your life

 

I don't know if I want kids. I'm 27, I'm a nanny, and I know what it's like to care for a child. Still, I think I will also feel a little twinge of fear when I hit 30. It's hard to know if you made the right choices. While I have good relationships, I'm also an eternal loner, and I can easily picture my future without a family in it. Still, even I sometimes feel envious of my friends who get to come home to a loving family. I think if the opportunity ever came my way, maybe I would take it.

 

I think the important thing to remember about life (for me, anyway) is that you can't control most of what happens to you. People make long-term plans, but never anticipate the element of chance. If I hadn't met one friend of mine, I wouldn't have ever fallen in love with opera, moved to the big city, etc. If I hadn't stayed after school one day in HS, I wouldn't have ended up at the college I did. I'm not saying that goals aren't a good thing to have, but human emotion is fickle. Some things can't be accomplished by work - you just have to let it happen.

 

If you find the guy, you'll find him. If you don't, you don't. You can make yourself emotionally available, doll up more, and become more social to try and up your chances of meeting him, but who knows where he'll be? All you can do is relax and take advantage of the opportunities afforded to you today. I believe that passionate, happy, motivated people attract good things. It sounds like you're a good person with a lot going for you, so I'll bet that good things are on their way.

[amerikajin]

Do you ever get that overwhelming feeling that life is passing you by. Everything around you just moves so fast, and you thought you had the time to do certain things, but then you realize that you're getting older and you need to hurry up and make things happen before you get too old.

 

I'm months away from hitting 30 and starting a new chapter in life. I haven't dated in well over 4yrs. All my closest friends are married, thinking about children and just moving along. I, on the other hand, haven't had the blessing of finding someone special yet. I get remarks from family and co-workers that it's about time I get married, and need to have children before my mid 30s.

 

It's crazy!! I'm content with my life and what I have accomplished in these last years (jet setting the world, half marathongs, professional growth, etc)

But I must admit, the only thing missing is my second half. I feel it deeply, and as time goes by I worry a little, and wonder if it will ever happen to me.

 

Never have I thought of myself as getting older, but it's starting to happen and the people I have been attracted to are 4 or more year younger than me.

Did I totally miss the train??! I look in the mirror, and I do see the fact that I am changing and I missed out having a real and true relationship in my 20s.

 

I always said, since I was a teen, that I would marry in my 30s, but now I wished I would have said in my late 20s. It's becoming true, but there is nothing to look forward to, and I'm a little scared.

 

Anyone felt the same way.

 

Life is passing all of us by. Time never stops.

 

I would not put pressure on yourself to find a second half. I would wait to find someone who fits you, because rushing into that situation can cause all sorts of problems. It's better to be single than to engage with the wrong person - trust me on that.

[writergal]

I think it's a natural reaction to feel that sense of panic when you're on the verge of exiting one decade, about to start a new one. I turned 40 this year and believe me, I had a massive panic attack on the day of my birthday because it really hit me hard, how off-track my life had become over the past 20 years.

 

Acceptance isn't easy, at any age, of your current life circumstances or how off-base you may feel. I'm still trying to come to terms with the fact that I am an unmarried, childless, unemployed graduate student for the past two years who feels like I haven't even begun to live my life yet; like I'm still in some weird limbo because of my past choices.

 

You're lucky to be so young at 30 years old. You have ten years ahead of you to reach your life's dreams and goals. I suppose I could say the same for myself in that respect. Sometimes I console myself that way, but it's difficult to do when my friends are all middle aged, either with long careers, or are married with children.

 

But don't pressure yourself to make it all happen right now. Life continues moving forward, regardless of our plans. That old quote comes to mind, "life is what happens when you make other plans." The biggest challenge is just accepting your current situation as it is, and not worrying about the past or the future.

 

If I could have a husband and children right now, I would love to. But it hasn't happened for me and I don't know if it ever will. All I can do is focus on finishing my graduate program, trying to find employment, and generally being happy with my life circumstances.

 

So, just try to relax and realize that you can only control so much in your life and remember that quote about life happening despite our attempts to control outcomes.

[ALonerAgain]

Confuesed, we're all here! *waves*

 

I'm 31 and single. It's coming up to a year since my ex partner and I broke up after 4 years of thinking, 'this could be it'. only to have it all gone in the blink of an eye.

 

Then my dad died suddenly and I was literally thrust into the emotional deep end.

This was the last thing that I expected to happen to me when I was 30.

 

I remember I'd actually vowed not to be in an office job by the time I hit the big 3-0. But what with the recession and these 2 major life blows, I'm so grateful that I at least had my 9-5 to fall back on.

 

It was a BIG wake-up call to get me to look at myself - an idea that I'd only been paying lip-service to since I was a late-teen.

 

And now, having looked at the past year, I am where I was meant to be all along: I understand me and my family a lot better. I've pushed my naturally introverted self to go out and make some new connections and I'm so grateful for all that's happened.

 

Am I totally over my ex and my dad's death? Absolutely not (ironically, it's been harder for me to let go of my ex than my dad). But it sure has given me some home truths about myself.

 

Continue as is, is what I say. I totally get what you're saying about the 'uncertainty' of it all: I feel the pressure too. But I also look around and see relationships that are 'less-than' and have started to trust that my new-found self-awareness is keeping me from making the same mistakes.

[NoMagicBullet]

Yes, I've gotten that feeling a lot this past decade -- I'm a few years away from 40, and I think like writergal, I'll probabaly have some sort of meltdown that birthday.

 

In anticipation of it, I've been trying to make peace with myself and accept that there are a lot of things I had hoped to do with an SO that I likely won't ever acheive, like a 50th wedding anniversary. Sorry to be such a downer, but I tried really hard throughout my 30's to turn my love life around and it hasn't happened (yet). Yeah, it could still happen, but my plans for my 40's are just to enjoy whatever I can in life, even if that has to be on my own. I keep reminding myself that it's better to be alone than miserable with someone else.

 

I sincerely hope your 30's turn out better than mine.

[Disillusioned]

Tsk, tsk, tsk... you folks sound so negative! When your hair turns white, you've lost most of your teeth, and you're hunched over and wrinkled, will that be any reason to stop playing games and settle down?