New Year's Resolution, February Edition

So last month, I wrote that I had made a few New Year's Resolutions, one of which was to, basically, start doing the things that people who have a life do.  To stop putting my life on hold, just because it's not the life I thought I would have. 

Alison recently wrote a post wherein she stated that "life doesn't come with odometers."  It wasn't really about this topic, but it was a great turn of phrase, and in my mind, brought with it a very interesting perspective.  An odometer does several things - it tells us how far we've traveled how much longer until we get where we're going, and it tracks certain expected maintenance tasks - refueling, changing the oil, replacing the timing belt and tires, etc...

I was thinking about how this applies to life: I think that we (ok, well, me anyway) tend to view birthdays as miles on an odometer, with all the attendant expectations.  College.  At 18.  Graduate school at 22. Good job at 25.  Married at 26.  Kid at 28.  Second kid at 30.  And while some of that is perhaps changing a bit, as average age of first marriage goes up, I think that general narrative still exists in many of our minds.  I think I sometimes view life as, "Hey, I forgot to fuel up at 25.  I'm getting on toward 30, and not seeing anywhere to get a new timing belt.  Etc..." But it occured to me today, as Alison said, that "life has no odometer." 

Life is just life.  And even though everybody tells you that you need to change the oil every 3000 miles, the reality is that if you use Mobil One, you can wait 7500 miles.  And I always use Mobil One.  :-)

So cheers to that! And on to the February edition of my New Year's Resolution...