There Is Always Something We Are Waiting For
There is always something that is supposed to make life feel more like life. The next job. The better apartment. More money. A relationship that finally feels right. A holiday we have been talking about for six months. A version of ourselves who wakes up early, drinks enough water, answers every message, knows what she wants, and somehow has her finances figured out.
For years, I thought this was simply what growing up meant, that you worked towards something, reached it, enjoyed it for a little while, and then found the next thing to work towards. The strange part is that the next thing always seemed far more important than whatever already sat in front of me.
The Week Was Always Something to Get Through
There was a time when Monday felt like an obstacle, when Tuesday sat too close to Monday to bring any enjoyment, Wednesday passed while I wondered how it had already arrived, and Thursday only mattered because Friday was finally close enough to see.
Then Friday arrived and suddenly the entire weekend felt precious, though Saturday disappeared almost as quickly as it began and Sunday became a countdown. By Sunday evening, I was already thinking about Monday again.
It feels strange to realise you have spent five days waiting for two, and then spent those two worrying about the five that were coming. Somewhere in between, the actual week had disappeared.
The Apartment That Was Always Temporary
I have done the same thing with homes, where there was always something I would fix later, buy later, decorate later. The empty wall could stay empty because I might move soon, the uncomfortable chair could wait because I would eventually buy a better one, and the balcony could remain completely forgotten because I would get plants when I had more money, more time, or a life that felt slightly more settled.
I kept treating my home like a waiting room. Looking back, it feels almost funny, because I was living there. I paid the rent, I made coffee there, and I had difficult days there and good ones too. Yet some part of me stayed convinced that my real home would begin with the next address.
The Sentence We Keep Repeating
Perhaps adulthood is full of sentences that sound harmless until you realise how much of your life they have quietly taken up. "Once things settle down." Once work settles down. Once I earn a little more. Once I have more time. Once I move. Once I meet someone. Once this project finishes. Once this year ends.
There is always another reason to wait, and because there is always another reason, there is always another future version of yourself who gets to enjoy the life you are currently postponing.
I Thought I Had to Become Someone Else First
For a long time, I thought I needed to become more impressive before I could really enjoy my life, more successful, more confident, more disciplined, more certain. I imagined that future version of myself quite clearly. She had better habits, better boundaries, better taste, better savings, and probably a much cleaner kitchen.
She seemed very organised, and she also seemed exhausting. I wonder now why I was waiting for permission from someone who never even existed.
Meanwhile, Life Was Happening
While I waited for things to get better, life quietly moved around me. My parents were getting older, friends were changing jobs and moving cities, and people I loved were entering completely different chapters of their lives. The neighbourhoods I knew were changing, restaurants closed, people left, and new people arrived. Even my own face slowly became different.
None of it happened loudly, and that is perhaps what makes time so strange. It rarely announces what it takes with it.
The Moments I Nearly Missed
Some of my favourite memories were never supposed to become memories. A late dinner after a long day when nobody felt particularly hungry but nobody wanted to go home either. A friend sitting on the kitchen floor while we talked about everything and nothing. My father making tea in the morning. A Sunday when everyone happened to be home. A rainy evening when plans fell through and staying in suddenly became the best thing that could have happened.
At the time, none of those moments felt important, since I was probably thinking about something that was coming next. That is the part I wish I could go back and change, never the decisions, only the attention.
Saturn Has Something to Say About This
One of the reasons Saturn interests me is that people often talk about it as the planet of delay, of waiting, hard work, and things taking longer than expected. But Saturn also understands something we tend to forget, that time never sits as the space between important moments. Time is the important part.
The years spent learning something nobody notices yet, the ordinary job that teaches you what you actually want, the quiet season before a major change, and the months when it feels as though nothing is happening, even as you become someone different underneath it all. Perhaps Saturn rarely asks us to wait. Perhaps it asks us to understand what happens while we wait.
Maybe There Is No Real Life Waiting Somewhere Else
The older I get, the more suspicious I grow of the phrase my real life. What exactly are we waiting for, a future where work always feels meaningful, money never brings stress, relationships flow effortlessly, our parents stay young, and we finally know what we are doing? It sounds lovely, and it also sounds impossible.
There will probably always be something unfinished, something we want, something we worry about, someone we miss, another version of ourselves we try to become. Maybe that never marks a flaw in life. Maybe that simply marks life.
What If This Counts Too?
You wanted independence, and perhaps you already have it. You wanted your own space, and perhaps you are sitting in it right now. You wanted to become someone your younger self would recognise, and perhaps she would.
Maybe the problem never lies in failing to reach our real lives. Maybe we keep refusing to count the life we are already living, the ordinary morning, the difficult year, the small promotion, the dinner with your parents, the quiet Sunday, even the season where you have no idea what comes next.
I Still Want More
Growing up, to me, never means giving up on ambition. I still want things, places I want to see, things I want to build, people I want to meet, and versions of myself I have yet to become. I still want the next chapter, and I simply want to stop spending the current one standing outside the door.
Because one day, this apartment will become the old apartment, these friends will become people I wish I spoke to more often, and this version of my parents will become the version I remember. This ordinary Tuesday will become one of those days I would give anything to experience again.
And perhaps that is the strange thing about waiting for your real life, that you spend so much time looking towards the moment when everything finally begins that you fail to notice it has been happening all along. Maybe the life you keep waiting for never sits somewhere ahead of you. Maybe it is the one you are already living, quietly, while you stay busy waiting for it to start.