Headspace Studios.

Hey friends, it's Rosie here. Welcome back to Radio Headspace.

When I was younger, I had a very clear vision of what I wanted my life to look like by the time

I turned 30. I was going to be married. I was going to have children. There would probably

be a small but charming house, maybe with a lemon tree in the yard. It wasn't even something I

consciously obsessed over. It was just even something I consciously obsessed over.

It was just the blueprint I'd absorbed from culture, from movies,

from the quiet assumptions that flowed around us when we're in our 20s.

30 felt like a milestone, a marker,

a checkpoint where adulthood would officially begin.

And then, 30 came and went.

Now I'm 42.

I don't have children.

Tori and I are not married.

And the funny thing is, at some point, that stopped feeling like a failure and started

feeling like a choice.

I kind of like having a boyfriend.

I like the lightness of it. I like that we choose each other every year without a legal document forcing us to. But getting here wasn't linear. There were moments in my 30s when I felt that

quiet ache. Weddings I attended, baby showers I smiled

through, late night thoughts where I wondered if I had somehow missed the train everyone else

seemed to board on time. Disappointment is tricky like that. It doesn't always show up as

devastation. Sometimes it's just the quiet

...