Mari Andrew

My parents married at 24 & 26, and they not only had, but had built with their own hands, a house that was finished before my mom came home from the hospital with me at 28, have had the same occupations since they finished high school (Dad) and college (Mom), and were able to provide just about everything my sister and I desired our entire lives. There were rough patches of course, they’re no longer together, but their lives were shaped by a different time, a different era.

To compare my life to my grandmothers’ lives is even more starkly contrasted. As millennials, my sister and I are mostly self sufficient, but there are definitely times when we’ve had to delicately ask for help. Our lives have been shaped by a very different era, and will forever be marked by the Recession of ’08. We will spend most of our young adulthood renting, we will postpone having children, if we have them at all, and we may not have substantial savings accounts until we are well into our 40s.

But that’s the path our lives have taken. It’s completely different than our parents, even if we wanted to measure up against their life paths, we can’t. That world doesn’t exist anymore. And while this idea isn’t exactly what Am I There Yet? delves into, the theme is close – your life is your life and we all live our lives differently and have to follow our own paths in order to carve out some semblance of self identity. If you’re looking to find some inspiration to be yourself, and even more importantly, to know that you’re not alone in feeling like your life isn’t following the prescribed path society seems to prefer, take a look at Am I There Yet?… (mer)