I’ve been going back and forth on deciding whether or not to write about this, but at the end of the day I think it is too important to let pass unannounced. I also believe that if I did allow this opportunity to pass, I’d be reverting to the very state that I would like to rally against when faced with such a decision point.

We all have places where we feel we belong best. These spots can occupy a certain time or space, or maybe they are simply states of being in one’s head. Whatever the case, we know that “this” is where we should be whenever we arrive at that particular destination. No self-questioning required.

I was reading some editorials over the past week that discussed the merits of getting married only after you have wormed your way out of your twenties. The overall contention was that this delay allows your brain, body and soul more time to fully develop into whatever it is that you’re supposed to be. Sure, many unions hold up under the strains and mental shift-shaping of your twenties, but for myself I would absolutely side with the idea that far too many of us settle down too early.

Even though I have always been a rather stubborn person, my twentysomething sense of self had not matured to a point where I was ready to give myself over to another person. While I now know that this is not what marriage is all about, at the time this is what I believed to be required of such a partnership. I was not yet wise enough to understand that this state of being was not quite where I belonged for that particular stage of my life. I just did went ahead and did it, for better or for worse. (And you know what? That’s okay, especially if such misdirections produce a head-thumping life lesson or two.)

Through no one’s fault but my own, when I opted to get married at 25 I made the literal and figurative decision to unceremoniously dump a large part of myself into a skip sitting on the side of the road. I remember carrying over a decade’s worth of creative work and casting it away without allowing myself any time for reflection. Looking back now, I can’t help but wonder what made me do this, but at the time I believed that my previous life was over- and now I’d need singular focus on what was right in front of me. (And at the time, maybe this is exactly what was needed.)

Fast forward to years of grind and an unceremonious entry into my thirties. Actually, the moment when the clock struck midnight, marking the start of my 30th year, I was in the South China Sea with 15 Southeast Asian men who conspired to sing “Happy Birthday” to me as I stood watch- but that’s another story. As I got into my thirties, I started to sense that everything that I had pushed aside was slowly making its way back up through my consciousness. Kind of like the stubborn beach ball that kids will always work so hard to push under the water’s surface. My life over the years had felt oddly incomplete, but for the life of me I could never quite articulate why this was the case.

Change was on its way though, even if my waking self never saw it coming.

I”ll spare you the play-by-play and just bring you straight up to my present day. The years of marriage that limited an ability to be where I wanted to be- both mentally and physically- have now gone the way of the way of Pope Benedict. Since then, an electric rediscovery of those neglected places served to hammer home with force their undying significance to me. They are not passing fancies only destined to become mere footnotes of my early life. No. Instead they form the foundation for everything else that will feed my soul for years to come. It could not and would not be abandoned- instead everything would just stand by until time caught up with me. Here in my thirties, after experiencing so much of myself and this world (and other people), I finally get this. And God help me, I’ll never throw that away again.

We are all responsible for our own actions, and if you are placing blame for your life’s shortcomings on another person or circumstance, then I would argue that you are still living your life in the type of denial that I once experienced.

We all owe it to ourselves to continually look inside and self-question our choices, routines, and space of existence. Not in a paranoid sort of way, but in a self-maintenance kind of approach. If you aren’t feeling fulfilled, or if you somehow sense a small voice inside transmitting a vague SOS call, then I’d advise you to get on with some fine tuning. And you had better do this before years of neglect precipitate a channel changing so profound that you have little control over how that change is implemented.

Right here. Right now. Both my physical and mental state of being are exactly where I know they should be. Isn’t getting old fantastic? I know that life will continue to throw out a number of bewildering and nuance-filled problem sets, and that they will beg for impossible translation. And maybe I will continue to get some of these wrong- but at least on this go around I will be wise enough to know that I must live new adventures while safeguarding all of the sacred self rituals that keep who I am in tact.