4 Life Milestones I Don’t Vibe With (And It’s Okay if You Don’t Either)

Okay real talk, everyone says nothing is traditional, but we all kind of know there still sort of is. The silent whisper in many conversations. I really hope you’re surrounded by people encouraging you to find what feels right for you. Having friends who don’t want what I want and vice versa has created a deep appreciation for each other’s place in life. But just in case you don’t feel that, here’s my list of “traditional” that I just don’t vibe with, right now.

Owning a Home

I legitimately love renting a condo. During the first six months of moving to Chicago, I lived in a duplex. I hated it. There was so much house to take care of. I despised the yard and extra space made me feel like I had to fill it with stuff. That was the closest I’ve been in a “home” situation in recent years and that solidified that owning a home doesn’t feel right for me.

People have lots to say about owning a home. We glorify it. You aren’t a person unless you own land. Or earning equity. You aren’t bone-a-fide unless you’ve got equity. (Borrowing from my favorite movie, Oh Brother Where Art Thou.) Some sort of weird Davy Crockett-era stuff. Renting is not throwing away money. It aligns with what I want right now. I love how Tori of HerFirst100K talks about her choice to rent despite being a millionaire.

I want to be able to text something is broken and it’s on the landlord to figure out. Additionally, I want to be able to leave within a few years. Do I want to leave? No. But I want the option. Is the home decorated how I want? Absolutely not, but I also know this is the tradeoff for being able to walk away and having minimal investment.

Having Kids

I tackled this one pretty directly and head-on here. For so long I’ve been told to not say no, never, or to keep the door open to having kids. It’s just not what I want. I don’t have any interest in stepping into a mother-adjacent role. People critique me for not giving people a chance but it’s not that. It’s that I refuse to set myself up for failure in a situation I know isn’t meant for me.

When I picture my future I only see myself, Eleanor, and maybe a partner. Similar to my feeling about not wanting to be settled into one place by owning a home, kids represent this. I want to be able to leave whenever I want. Sometimes even having a dog, as much as I love it, holds me back from booking that Friday night flight on Thursday morning when I feel the itch to travel. I think Eleanor is my first dog on my own and last if I continue to want to have this flexibility.

Getting Married

I was close on this one and didn’t go through with it. I’m glad I went through the planning because if I *was* to get married again I can know what I was going to do before and learn from that. But what I really never vibed with during wedding planning was being married. You know, the reason you are actually spending thousands of dollars to impress people who you may or may not know in 10 years? Yeah. I did NOT like the concept of actually being legally attached to someone. Being a… wife? *Eyes widen involuntarily* That is not a title I want to add to my bio.

Transparently, out of all of the things I’ve mentioned in this post this is the one that I can see vibing with at some point. But it’s not something that is my end goal of finding someone. I don’t need a piece of paper to experience commitment and shared values and goals. And if I do feel that I do, I’m a realist and believe in having prenups, even when there’s not a massive fortune at stake. Beyond money, there’s a lot of other things to fight over. As I got closer to marriage I realized it’s important to be on the same page about those non-monetary assets and post-marriage items. (Like me not changing my name or sharing bank accounts. )

Love does not conquer all – it’s only through compromise and understanding that a relationship truly works and you don’t need marriage for that, you can have a partnership that is fulfilling in every way but not legally binding with financial consequences if terminated.

Working for Myself

One of my biggest subconscious annoyances was the 2010’s romance with quitting working for someone else and making it on your own. Be your boss. Better yet, be your own girl boss. *Shudders in girl boss era.* 2017/2018 felt like the year of moving from being a blogger to a brand. I mean after all, if you’d been blogging for years at that point, surely you were going to be able to parlay it into an empire. Or a podcast. Ideally both. (A great example of someone who did this well is Grace of The Stripe.)

It felt as if there was something wrong with someone like me who had medium growth and sort of stalled out at that point. Honestly, my numbers haven’t grown since that peak time, but they haven’t dwindled either. What did grow was my desire for a job with benefits, a 401K, and not turn my love of writing into my full-time job.

Do I have side businesses I dream of? Yes. However, I’m at a point where I value being able to leave my work at work and my free time is truly mine. I like being able to clearly define the lanes in my life. Work, hobbies, life, and the ability to make some of those solid, not dotted lane lines. There was a point where I realized about half of my friends aligned to very socially-normative ideas and goals.

At first, I wasn’t sure how to handle it when life started showing my friends and I’s differences in what we want out of life. Excitement for them? Absolutely! But I also knew those moments didn’t vibe with me. Years later these moments still don’t, and I’m okay with it now! None of those friends expect me to take on those moments for me and welcome my exploration of what does feel right.

Your 30s are a weird time of sort of realizing how different of a path you are when you haven’t done most of the traditional milestones. But you know what? Those are disappearing (as they should)! I hope you find joy in finding what does feel right and discarding what doesn’t.