Maybe you are not falling behind
Maybe you are taking the scenic route
Consider this: Maybe you are not falling behind. Maybe your life isn’t unfinished. Maybe it’s not incomplete. Maybe it is still unfolding, because you are still breathing, so your life is expanding with you, stretching and bending like water—like something too alive to ever be fixed in one shape.
Consider this: Maybe you are not lost or behind. Maybe you are moving at the perfect pace for you, taking the route that offers breathtaking views others don’t see— hidden valleys, mist rising off a quiet lake at dawn, fireflies flickering in a field no one stops to notice, a conversation with a new person —rather than racing down the highway with everyone else.
Consider this: Maybe those on the highway miss out on the sunlight dancing through the trees. Maybe they don’t feel the hush of the forest or the quiet wisdom of an empty road at dusk. Maybe they rush past all the details that make a life rich, going too fast to see other people. Too fast to see themselves.
Consider this: Maybe what your heart aches for isn’t what you need—at least not yet. Maybe the dream you are yearning for is still becoming itself, still growing encased by darkness, a seed held in the womb of the earth. Maybe there is something you need to learn, something you need to grow into before it is time. Maybe the waiting isn’t punishment. Maybe it is protection. Maybe it is preparation.
Consider this: Maybe what you think you want isn’t actually what you want. Maybe it is what you have been told to want all your life. What your friends want. What your family, your god, or the world expects of you. Maybe it is the dream handed to you by a system that thrives on keeping you running, striving, chasing—without ever stopping to ask if the road you’re on is even one you want to be on. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe it never was. And maybe that’s why it feels so heavy. Maybe that’s why your heart resists, why something inside you whispers that there must be another way.
Consider this: Maybe it’s okay to follow your sparks, every single one of them - even if nobody gets it. Even if they tell you to give up or grow up. Maybe it’s ok to paint when the colours call you. To sing when your voice wants to find its way out of your throat. To pick up the guitar just because you love the sound of it under your fingertips, to play it badly and laugh at yourself. Maybe it is beautiful to make dinner at home with a friend, to sit at an old, loved table, to share something made with your hands instead of something bought with a credit card. Maybe love lives more in that simple act than in all the expensive restaurants you thought you should be sitting in.
Consider this: Maybe it’s okay, or even necessary, to explore everything that lights you up, to follow all the winding paths that call your name. Maybe your life was never meant to fit inside a neat little box. Maybe it was always meant to spill over the edges, to stretch beyond expectation, to be something entirely its own.
Maybe it’s beautiful that your life doesn’t conform. Maybe you are creating something never seen before. Something better than the dreams you were sold. Maybe you need to leave the safety of the well-lit road to find what’s true for you.
Consider this: Maybe that bumpy road you ended up on accidentally, that took you to an ugly place with a terrible view is ok too. Maybe it’s ok to be sad about that. Maybe you meet people there who also took an unwanted turn. And now you are there together, in this imperfect moment, in this ugly place, sharing the same odd journey. Maybe the beauty is not in the view, but in the unexpected connections. Maybe you are trusting the road to teach you and maybe it won’t always make sense.
I know you are tired. I know you want to make it home quickly. But consider this: Maybe taking longer to arrive means arriving with more intention, more clarity of who you are. Maybe it’s ok to move slower and arrive later than everyone else. Late-R does not mean too late. Maybe it’s ok to make more stops. To pause for a snack. To look at the view, even if it means just sitting in an empty car park for a while. To meet a stranger who might change where you drive to next. Maybe taking longer means trusting yourself enough not to merge into someone else’s world. Maybe it means you find the courage to co-create with the symphony of your life. Maybe you are not lost. Maybe you are letting the road write the story.
Consider this: That you will come home just on time to meet your moment. Maybe you are not falling behind, maybe you are taking the scenic route.
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video
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Reading this made me cry — for most days I feel lost to myself and what the path forward will look like. After suddenly losing my wife five years ago, I have deliberately placed my broken open heart into an internal terrain of gestation and unknowing. A place where I continue to reassess who I am and what I am becoming. And most importantly, a land where finding meaning and beauty and a continued fealty to the embodied spirit of my beloved takes precedence. Despair and loneliness are constant companions yet I have unwavering faith that most of what I touch, see, and feel has made this journey sacred. Thank you, Nadia.
My soul needed the medicine of these words. I will carry them with me.