Feel really behind everyone else in my generation

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Being a member of the millennial generation (1981-1996), born in between the late 80s/early 90s I remember people I knew older than me during my early, mid and late 20s, getting married and having kids while I remained single and even into my 30s I'm still single but for some reason I feel like I should have kids by now that are 5, 10 or 15 years old like my step mum's son's and daughter's kids who were I think born in 2007, 2011, 2012 and 2017.

I still feel mentally like I'm younger and as though little has changed although some things have since I knew my stepmum and her family. I drive a car and have been in a paid job for ten years but I've never held a relationship with anyone despite once being with someone who wanted one with me but I didn't at the time because I wasn't sure if wanted one with her. I also don't own a house and I still live with divorced parents and their partners.

Sometimes I have moments I feel behind others of similar ages. I don't drive or have a car, and only rent an apartment, I'm married but no kids.
But I think I compared myself with others more when I was in my twenties. Nowadays, I feel a bit more assured that even though my life looks different than some other people my age, I am where I am meant to be. There are things about my life that other people might wish for, just like things that they have that I would maybe like.
I live in a city with good public transit so it helps the not driving thing, even though it still makes me feel a bit out of sync with others my age who are well seasoned drivers by now!
I think something that has really been helpful for me was being able to look back my life and connect together memories, and how they shape me and it feels like my story has been more interesting than it felt in the moment. So, even this moment, now, I have so much to be thankful for. Even though life has it's struggles for sure.

I feel that way too, OP.

I feel that way too.

Hopefully it's keeping me younger.

Life is like a cube whose sides we can only see one at a time. No one can see the full cube all at once, and no two sides are the same. There are far, far more sides to this cube than six.

Right now you're looking and experiencing a side of life I've probably never seen, and maybe never will see. How can you order people according to where they are in life when looking at it this way?

I've felt behind others at times, and at other times, in other ways, I've felt ahead of them. Maybe in some sense both feelings are right. In the end, I think our goal is to be "reasonably happy" / "good enough happy" with our lives. The standard markers of "progress" are not only *not* guidelines for your life, they are merely expectations passed on, things heard and said from anxious parents and young professionals echoing through social media and dinner parties.

If there's a gap between what you have and what you want in life, build towards that and keep moving forward. I know that's hard when being yourself can have costs and challenges, and it's not so simple, but... keep score on supporting yourself and being compassionate to yourself. This game of life is mean to be played by you, accompanied by whoever truly appreciates your company. I believe we all have or can find people like that.

I almost never have felt a part of my generation, I was born a few years too early or too late.

Being married and living with a spouse, albeit childless, isn't unusual for this day and age and still suggests you are able to function like a normal adult (well, from the perspective of others anyway, even if you still are struggling).

But I feel quite behind in the employment world. I've only ever been in cleaning jobs, which suggests I'm rather unskilled and unconfident. Also I have never worked full-time in my life, only part-time. But I think I'd die of boredom if I had to do cleaning full-time. But everything else seems to require certain skills and training, as in studying, except for jobs like retail or care work, but I know I would find full-time retail work as boring as cleaning, and I have severe Emetophobia so care work is out of the question, as people who need the most care (including children) seem most likely to vomit from contagious viruses. I feel like care homes and hospitals are just huge gas chambers with unclean air that's full of all sorts of viruses, that, if I've learnt anything from covid, mask don't protect you from if you're not the one with the virus. But you can't expect kids, elderly, and sick people to wear masks with norovirus.

Employment can be so hard when you have anxiety and ADHD. I wish the government understood this more.