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When I was fifteen I imagined my eighteen year old self; I had moved out of home, I had a job, a credit card bill and a long term boyfriend. Then before I knew it, I was blowing out eighteen candles on a delicious chocolate cake and yet I still lived at home, I was still at school with a part time cafe job, I didn't have a credit card let alone the bill and I was definitely still single. It was almost hard to adjust my eyes to the vision of myself I'd imagined just three years earlier.

I can't think what my fifteen year old self would have imagined for my 'twenty-something's'. It seemed so far off. I'm sure a husband, a child or my own home was in there somewhere. That's certainly not a tale of the reality.

I also don't think my fifteen year old self would have imagined every thing I have done either. It would have been hard to believe if I had pre-eminated that I would have lived in both Paris and London for over two years, that I had circumnavigated Europe and visited numerous new countries with the change of each season. I'm sure I wouldn't have believed that someone could single handedly spend so much time at an airport.

At fifteen I kept looking up. I wanted those numbers to climb higher, I wanted to be the eighteen year old vision I had glistening in my mind. I wanted to be independent, know who I was, and what I wanted to be; eighteen would do this.

Now I'm 'twenty-something' and I keep looking across.

Engagements are filling my news feed. I find myself thinking of appropriate wedding gifts, baby shower presents and watching people I learnt algebra with suddenly start to expand with new life inside them. I look across at people wearing corporate suits and designer dresses toting briefcases and multi million dollar contracts. I see their expensive cars glide into freshly purchased homes. I see their lives cascading in front of them, their Saturday night dinner parties breaking up their Monday to Friday, 9-5. I look across, and I see everything I'm not. Everything I don't have. Everything that's different. How is their 'twenty-something', also mine? Where did our paths stop, and go in different directions? Did I miss a turn-off?

I was walking with my friends the other day and stumbled upon an old school friend who we hadn't seen in a few years. Sure, we can kept up to date virtually, through the wonders of social media, but a face-to-face catch up is better. Home for the summer, and unemployed after a long time spent travelling, she gazed in awe and amazement as we regaled our tales of travel. She'd never heard of Dubrovnik and she certainly didn't know the majestic feeling of walking through Paris at dusk on a mild summer evening. Then we listened intently as she enlightened us on the magic of her wedding day, the dress she wore, the things that went perfectly and the things that didn't. She showed us her ring and glanced at our naked fingers, empty of jewellery yet filled with experience. The places these fingers have been.

We told her of the frustration of being unable to speak a foreign language, of being close to an empty bank account or being stuck in the middle of nowhere with a large pack and no map. She told us of the struggle of marriage, the downs that accompany the ups, the compromising, the understanding, the collective independence.

Her Facebook page doesn't tell us that. It shows pure harmony, abundant smiles and perfect pose. Our Facebook pages show glittering sunsets, wide eyed laughter and new friends. Social media is a highlights reel of the movie of your life, the background moments are deleted scenes, hidden from view.

Looking across doesn't help. Comparison is irrelevant.

I might have expected to have a family or a mortgage or a corporate job by this age, but instead I have the ability to speak French, to navigate a new, big city and a camera full of memories from different parts of the world. I have friends in numerous countries and a wallet full of various currencies.

There isn't any worth in expecting the future, looking ahead to an assumed vision of your life or looking across to someone else's in a judgement of where you are.

At fifteen, I looked up. I looked up to eighteen, to independence, to assumed responsibility. I saw eighteen as the answer to my fifteen year old questions. Who I was, what I wanted, what I could become.

At twenty, I looked across. I looked across to others my age, to see what they had done, what they had accomplished. To compare my life experience to theirs in an assessment of whether I was in the right place whether I had done enough in life. Whether I had done the right things or whether I was falling behind the pack and letting my life slip by.

When I'm eighty, I'll probably look down. I'll look down on everything I've done and everything I haven't. I'll remember the memories, and the mistakes. I'll think back to when I was young and wild and free and able. I'll relive the last minute airport check-ins, the barefoot dancing under the glare of the moonlight, chasing the boy I liked over Parisian cobblestones and uninhibited laughter in the comfort of friends.

It's living the moment. Feeling the now. And appreciating that each second holds the chance for another risk, another adventure, another breath. It's about knowing that soon our knees will feel different, our eyes won't see the same, we won't move as fast or as much or as far. It's knowing that the memories will count.

One life cannot be compared to another. There is no right or wrong.

Live your own, just, live it. And live it well.