different priorities?

I'm still adjusting to live back on the East Coast. I am making new friends and re-connecting with old ones. As I re-connect with old college friends (and some high school friends via Facebook) I am realizing that I have lived a very different life than those that stuck around Massachusetts. While I was out in the world, traveling around, trying to find a place that I fit it, trying out careers and figuring out who I am, my old friends have married, have children and become adults. This completely freaks me out!!

My friends in SoCal are mostly the same as me. We are, for the most part, single and still trying to make sense of our place in the world. The friends I am making here are also the same as me. I have to conclude that I am leading the life I lead because of who I am not because of the choices I made. But seeing all my old friends makes me wonder "what if?"!

What if I stayed in the area? Who would I be now? Would I have settled down and become an adult too? I still think of myself as very young in a lot of ways. It is unfathomable to think that I would be settled at this point in my life, mainly because it's not exactly what I want for myself. I don't completely know what I do want but I know it's not a husband, 2.4 children and a house with a white picket fence. Certainly I'd like to find someone to spend my life with but I don't equate that with feeling settled - it's more like being complete (thank you Jerry Maguire!). Maybe my definition of settled is different? I feel like I am getting closer to whatever it is that I am looking for. Or maybe it's that I am closer to being at peace with who I am and the choices I've made . . .

I am very happy for all of my friends and the choices they made. I cannot picture them any other way than the way they are now. It does blow my mind a little to think that the friends that I, ahem, partied strenuously with in college are now parenting 5 year olds! I never thought I'd see the day!!