A while back I worked at a company I really liked. I made lots of good friends there and it was, I think, the best time in my life to date. A few days before I

A while back I worked at a company I really liked. I made lots of good friends there and it was, I think, the best time in my life to date. A few days before I left that company, people have taken me out for farewell drinks. We hang out until late at night, having fun, drinking and eating and chatting and so on. Until it's like midnight and we all have to go home. One of my friends is the new girl. She's pretty attractive, and new in town. She's also from the suburbs and hasn't figured out the basic safety steps to being able to walk through downtown SF safely late at night, so she asks if I can walk her to her apartment. I say of course. As we start walking, she starts bawling. I take it things haven't been going to well in her life and she's got some demons to grapple with. Well that's fine, I'm not going to ignore a friend in need when she calls for help. So we sit and I listen as she goes for about two hours, telling me her problems. What were her problems? More or less the same as what was written in this article. She had just turned 30 and was starting to realize that she had nothing to show for it and the time available to her to settle down was quickly evaporating. It broke my heart. She was a really cool person. She was smart, and pretty, and yet still down to earth. Unlike a lot of people I'd met in SF, she wasn't snobby or arrogant. She had a lot going for her. But at the same time, she was on the same path as OP was and I didn't see her getting off it any time soon. Her big thing was travelling. She loved to travel. She'd been all over the world. She'd done backpacking, she'd done hotelling. She spent a few years living on a boat the Caribbean doing scuba stuff. She spent a few years living in an expat community in Asia. She had had a lot of experiences. But unfortunately, experiences are expensive, and it's really hard to put down roots when you're constantly on the move. And she was being made miserable by the conflict between her desire for an exciting life and her desire for a stable life. I didn't know what to say, so I tried my best to be a good friend in the moment. I haven't heard from any of the folks from that company in a few years. I hope she's found the life she wanted, and that she doesn't end up like OP