i don't want the dream house anymore

i was born into a strict religious community. a little over eleven years ago, i left. the story behind that decision is a story for another day. maybe one i'll tell when i'm ready. what i can tell you is this: when you spend years living inside rules, expectations and versions of yourself that were often shaped by other people, something strange happens. you become very good at imagining who you're supposed to be. and very disconnected from who you actually are. for years, there was a version of myself living somewhere in the future. she was confident. she knew what she was doing. she wasn't constantly questioning herself. she had the house. the clarity. the courage. the certainty. the life. whenever i felt insecure, overwhelmed or stuck, i imagined her. future me. the woman who had finally figured it all out. and somehow, no matter what i achieved, she always stayed just out of reach. because every time i got closer, the finish line moved. i would reach one goal and immediately create another. one day, i thought, i'll feel like her. one day, i'll become her.

but lately, i've been wondering if i've misunderstood something. what if she was never waiting for me at the finish line? what if she's been forming quietly all along? and then something even stranger happened. the closer i got to becoming her, the less interested i became in meeting her. because for years, i thought she had all the answers. i thought she lived in the dream house. i thought she had perfect confidence. perfect certainty. perfect timing. i thought she had somehow escaped all the doubts, insecurities and imperfections that come with being human. but lately, i've realised something. i don't actually want her life. at least not all of it. and that realisation hit me like a truck. because for years i thought i was chasing a destination. what i was really chasing was approval. approval from people who weren't living my life. approval from expectations i never consciously agreed to. approval from a version of success that looked suspiciously similar to everyone else's. the nice house. the perfect timing. the flawless confidence. the neat little roadmap. the fucking script. and if there's one thing i've learned, it's this: my life was never meant to follow the script. my path has never been straight. and honestly? thank god for that.

for a long time, i treated being different like a problem to solve. something to fix. something to hide. something that made me harder to understand. now i see it differently. different isn't the problem. different is the reason i'm here. my husband and i would never have made it this far by following the path everyone expected us to follow. we would never have built what we're building by colouring neatly inside the lines. some of the best things in our lives were born from ideas that sounded ridiculous at the time. ideas that made other people raise an eyebrow. ideas that didn't fit neatly into a spreadsheet. ideas that probably should have come with a disclaimer. and yet here we are. not because we knew exactly what we were doing. because we were willing to try. because we were willing to look stupid. because we were willing to trust ourselves before there was proof.

that's the part nobody talks about. people celebrate the outcome. they rarely celebrate the uncertainty that came before it. the nights where you have no idea if you're building something brilliant or completely delusional. the moments where fear and excitement become impossible to tell apart. the moments where you're standing at the edge of something new thinking, "this could either change my life or become a very educational mistake." and somehow moving forward anyway. that's courage. not certainty. not confidence. not perfection. just movement. and maybe that's why i've stopped obsessing over becoming some ideal version of myself. because the older i get, the more i realise that the woman i imagined all those years ago wasn't real. she was a placeholder. a symbol. a promise that one day i'd finally be enough. but here's the thing. she never arrived. because she was never supposed to. life isn't a video game where you unlock a final version of yourself. you don't suddenly wake up enlightened, healed, confident and immune to self doubt. at least i haven't. i still overthink. i still doubt myself. i still have days where i feel completely out of my depth. i still wake up questioning my every move. but i also wake up with ideas. with curiosity. with excitement. with possibility. and for the first time in a very long time, i think that's enough. actually, i think it's more than enough. because when i look around today, i don't see a perfect life. i see a unique one. a life built on strange ideas. unexpected turns. late night conversations. calculated risks. a marriage that feels like a partnership. children i adore. dreams that still scare me. and a future that looks absolutely nothing like the one i once imagined.

and honestly? i love that. because ordinary was never the dream. authenticity was. freedom was. becoming myself was. maybe i'm not becoming the woman i imagined all those years ago. maybe i'm becoming someone far more interesting.