Do you ever just think something is wrong with you? I don’t mean that you feel sick or that you think you hurt yourself, but that something is just wrong with you as a person? You’re watching all your friends find things that you had expected to achieve by now, but you don’t see hope in sight. Everyone is getting engaged, having kids, moving into actual houses, and you’re still…here. Even if you try to tell yourself that it’s fine, that everyone moves at a different pace and you wouldn’t be able to afford kids and a house right now anyway, you still wonder. Why doesn’t it all work out for you?

I’d like to think there’s some sort of word for this feeling, and despite quite a bit of googling, I’m not finding one. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t spend my entire life laying in my room, crying because I’m single and terrified that I’ll never find someone, but it does happen sometimes. When scrolling through Facebook, I’ll come across what I swear is the thousandth pregnancy announcement from someone I went to high school with and I’ll just stare at my phone briefly, thinking “Wow, I’m getting old.” Then I think about the fact that I currently work a few different minimum wage jobs and still rely on my parents to support me while I live in an apartment with some people I barely knew three months ago, and I wonder if I’m going to die alone.

In hindsight, I know this feeling is ridiculous. I know that considering where I am in my life, I’m actually doing pretty well and learning a lot. I just sometimes think about how much further some people my age are and it terrifies me. It makes me feel inadequate. I’m not currently making any sort of difference to society, something that I have wanted so desperately for as long as I can remember.

I’m writing this today to let anyone who needs it know that wherever you are in life, you’re doing well. If your definition of accomplishment is as simple as eating something, that’s okay. You’ll get there in your own time. Someone is proud of you. Somebody cares for you. You make the world better.