For most women, there’s always been this clock.
It’s like this loud annoying ticking sound inside of our bodies. You know how a cat purrs, and they can’t tell were the purring is coming from?
Well that’s the annoying ticking noise us women hear, and we can’t figure out where the ticking is coming from. Not everyone, but most of us want to have a set schedule on how our lives are going to go, mostly because we’ve been given a handbook saying, “take these exact directions and you’ll make it to the end of life’s maze.”
What if I want to take a longer way? Shouldn’t that be perfectly fine?
What if I don’t want to follow the handbook?
What if I need time to find out who I’m supposed to be and what I want to do with my life? …but still there’s this annoying ticking.
Even though I’ve personally tried my absolute best not to get caught up in the stigmatism of “life’s order,” I still doubt myself. I’m sure others have felt the same.
We only have one life, and I know that puts a lot of pressure on us to make this one life perfect, but in my opinion… I don’t think that’s how we should be living.
I think people should start taking their time with things. I wish I knew how to take a break without getting anxiety from just thinking about taking a break. Do we ever really make time for us? The things we need to just relax and feel like we can start again? Or do we take vacations from work, and then end up working on our vacations? Do we even have time for just ourselves?
The best and most common advice I’ve received from my elders is to enjoy life, have fun and take your time, because it goes by so fast.
When I hear their amazing stories they share with me, I mostly hear about how simple things were.
We would flash back to times in their story where they felt free and realize how fast life really moves by. When I hear them say “I wish I could’ve,” it makes me wonder. Do I want to look back at my younger years and say “I wish I could’ve,” or even “what if?”
So, my question is, how do we change the handbook? How do we rewrite our lives? Does it start with us by doing what we love, or enjoy? How do we get to live a life that we actually want to live and feel inspired by?
Maybe we won’t ever truly know how to make the ticking noise in our bodies stop, but maybe we won’t hear it as much if we start living our lives the way we want and doing what feels inspiring to us.
When we wake up and start living in the moments we want and create for ourselves, maybe then we will find our true happiness.
We all have dreams and inspirations that we depend on to give us hope, so what’s stopping us from even making just a part of those dreams reality?
Who says you have to be a certain age to do those things you’ve always wanted to do?
Maybe it’s not really anyone telling us we can’t, its only ourselves imagining the white rabbit with the clock saying we’re going to be late.
So, my conclusion is that doesn’t matter what age you are, gender, color or even size. Seize the moment.
You can start living how you want right now, you can make that dream that keeps you going your own reality. Do those things you’ve always wanted to do. You can even take baby steps!
There are no rules saying you have to live a certain way, or a handbook with directions showing us how to get out of life’s maze faster.
Start this weekend with something small you’ve always wanted to do or experience.
Take a chance and believe in the life that you want to live.
Believe in the person that you want to become, and always remember the only person who’s truly telling you that you can’t do something is yourself.
So, I’ll leave you with this question, are you going to start living authentically you and choose your own happiness, or are you going to look back and say, “I wish I could’ve?”

Skyler Cunningham is an Ironton Tribune intern.