Thanks everyone for your responses! I appreciate the nice comments, etc. I don't want to 'compare' myself but I just don't feel like I am where I want to be. I've read letters I've wrote to the 'future' (now present) me and I realize I never knew really where I wanted to be. Or how to figure it out. Or to where I should be. I'm understanding more and more the value of life (not that I even want to take a chance at living it) and I went from not wanting it to not knowing how to live it, to savor it. From everyone's descriptions, it seems that 26 wasn't really a "blissful" age for anyone but most importantly, not a good tell of where one will be later in life.

[i dont matter] I appreciate your kind response. Reading it almost in the moment that I wrote it, it literally brought tears to my eyes.

[regretful] You said if you could go back, you'd have done a lot differently - what are some of the things that seem so obvious now that didn't seem as obvious then that you want changed?

[monkeybrains] You sound a lot more like where I'd hoped to be at this point. Even if not necessarily happy, just - more stable/independent and with a job. *sigh* I, also, can't imagine a life with the ties of my family cut, though I greatly would like to cut a few.

[Bluesday] It's ironic that T and I talk about my life in the terms of an assemblage of roller coasters. But many of the rides are incomplete, and stopped mid-ride... I'm not excited to know that the rest of life is just more of the same.

[nummy] I'm sorry to hear about your struggle at that time and how it still haunts you.

[phaset] Have you ever wanted to live outside of your hometown? Did making it to 27 make it any different? What kind of help did you end up asking for?

[jimi] I think it's pretty awesome that you wrote a novel. Especially so young.

[Perna] What an interesting story. Thank you for sharing.

[1914sierra] Sounds pretty nice before the latter misfortune.

[doyoutrustme] I find it extremely hard to set any real goals - maybe because I don't want to deal with the disappointment of them not being acheived but also partially because I feel like there are so many things in life that I don't know about to even want to try to acheive.

[trying2survive] Way more accomplished than I at this point. Good for you!

[ncrust] I understand age is not related to happiness. What, though, do you attribute to that?

[CompleteNerd]I am a few weeks short of being right in the middle of 26 and 27 (which sounds a lot like 30 to me). "You have a lot of time, and many lifetimes in your lifetime to reinvent yourself." I try my best to live by this idea but lately it hasn't been getting anywhere.

[ChipperMonkey] I understand what you're saying; I just want to feel life I can believe that there is no "should be" place in life.

[avlady] Thanks for sharing.

[Jolisse] I'm sorry to hear that!

[Alfred.Mayor] Well i'm definitely making my own path but how do I know that it's going somewhere/anywhere?

[Lemongrab] I think i'm kind of in a similar place as you are at this point; oddly enough this is comforting. I want financial independence and to learn how to live independently in general before 30

[Emma] 26 doesn't sound like that great of an age to be in for your friend.

[tokiwartooth]

[Sister Rags] That sounds relatively accomplished!

[no more me] My heart tells me to do things in my own time and not to conform to societal rules, but my gut tells me that in the process of doing things in my own time - i'm actually not doing much of anything at all but wasting it.