not knowing the next

Twenty eight appears to be the year when adulthood takes its firmest hold yet. Sure, you've supported yourself for a number of years, you've made some big steps, you've been to a few weddings etc. But now your peers are having babies, and people's master's degrees and law degree's have some dust on their frames already. You're actually in this thing called "grown up." I think I'm mostly o.k. with this, especially since I'm finally taking some steps toward living a grown up life I can be comfortable in, but it never ceases to amaze me how little I really expect from it all. I look at friends and family who are having babies, and there's this sense of just knowing that this was what this stage in life called for. No question - this is the time, this is what is meant to be done. I have such a hard time relating, because when I look at my future I don't have any must-be-dones or this-will-be-the-times. I can't imagine being pregnant, don't know when that fits into my life, or if it does at all. I can't imagine running a household, or having enough money to fill one with real furniture. I live my life in the context of an individual, a shared home with only a room to fill and a single meal to prepare at the end of the evening (unless I'm cooking for my roommate too, of course).

It's not that I'm worried about this - I'm really not. It's just that it seems so different than so many people who have this clear progression of what life looks like in their heads. College, grad-school, marriage, kids, move, buy house, buy new car, take big trip, get promoted, buy new house etc. etc. etc. I just don't see any of it. I just keep making decisions as they are presented, doing my best to stay in tune with a gut-feeling of what is right for me and what is not, and trying to trust that there's a direction to it all. In my brief meeting with a career counselor I can't afford, I told her about the steps I've taken career wise, and she asked me how much money I'd like to ultimately make. ?????? Haven't given it a second thought. Would like to make more than I do now, that's for sure, but I don't really think about what a future income could mean other than knowing I want to be able to give my hypothetical kids the same opportunities that I've had. Given that this seems 99% impossible with the way of the economy and cost of living, I kind of just push the whole thing from my head and go back to my happy place of "follow your gut and it all works out."

I think to a certain extent I'm taking the same approach to love. I have a vague idea of what Mr. Right might be like, but no real concrete vision. So I base my attraction and interactions with men on the moment - is it there, or is it not? Can we laugh together right now? Do I want him to hold my hand, or more? Instant connections are nice and all - but it seems so shallow in the scheme of things. Wouldn't some sort of expectation be a better bet? And you know what? I'm not even talking about a vision of the person, but the vision of the life as a whole - it's just so damn vague. I don't really know what type of a relationship I aspire to because I can't really imagine myself in one. I don't know where I want to live because I can't really imagine a job that I will do that I might find in said place. I can't really imagine a job I might do because I have yet to find one that didn't make me want to shoot myself well over half the time.

So I plod "forward" but where am I going?

It's strange to be more or less at peace with who I am right now, but to have moments where I almost completely can discredit my entire thought process solely by looking at what others are doing and how much more they seem to have figured out than I do. Though if I'm honest with myself, it's not really about figuring anything out - it's about a sense of peace or understanding that some seem to either have, or don't. And I don't want to dismiss what they have figured out to make my path seem more mighty or prudent - just as I don't want to dismiss myself entirely in order to acknowledge their contentment with their own lives.

It's a funny and fine line, one that wandered a bit throughout this post but leaves me with plenty of food for thought.

hypocrite-I-am

I do not like being teased, and while I wish I could blame this on the fact that all teasing carries some element of truth - it's more that I don't like anyone but myself to have a say in how silly/immature/lazy etc. etc. that I can be. For what is teasing if not to allude to, albeit in jest, some sort of shortcoming in the person being chided? Fundamentally, I don't think this is bad. None of us are perfect and the joy of any true relationship or friendship is the knowledge that someone has accepted you, flaws and all. For some reason, and as I write this I think it is the major desire I have to ignore my flaws all together, I have not been able to tolerate teasing lately. Not from one of my best friends, or a close family member, or my boyfriend - whose standard response when I say that I'm tired is something along the lines of, "again? Shocking." It is his teasing that gets me the most riled up these days, and he happens to be one of those people who revels in a good tease. He likes to see my feathers ruffled - to see me get antsy and defensive as I try to weasel my way out of what is very often a very true observation he has however circuitously made. For the most part, this makes me look at him as a mother might look at her child when he is being silly, but cute. Re-read that analogy and it spells T-R-O-U-B-L-E for a relationship. I can't for the life of me figure out why in the flirtation stage of a relationship (pre-relationship, if you will) teasing can be such a turn on - so fun! What changes when you're in a relationship and you can't laugh it off - you're left with the fact that this person is joking about who you really are (or at least how you act?). Thoughts, anyone?

Cuz I'm just a girl (blogger)

If I had to classify myself in the blog world, I'd say I am on paper what I am in life - adventurous at heart but cautious in practice, a bit of a flirt, a very small amount rebel, sincere, sometimes witty, de vez en cuando boring (self criticism is so much easier in another language) and always, always looking for something I can't quite put my finger on. Many of the blogs I'm drawn to, and those by women especially, are the much the same (with added humor and/or insight!). I think it's the sincerity that is most important to me - both in my writing and in the blogs I read.

I bring this up because for a blogger like myself, there are an array of topics that are almost sure to be broached: love, heartbreak, family, frustrations at work, the importance of friends, what challenges us, and babies. Babies you say? But of course! What gal who is closer to thirty than she is to twenty doesn't have to address this at some point or another - whether she wants to or not?

As I read the horror stories of other single and/or childless women I tend to thank my lucky stars that I have been spared most of them. I have very few, if any, people in my life who greet me with such gems as, "Still haven't found Mr. Right?" Thanks to siblings who have blessed my parents with ten grand kids, there's no pressure from them to introduce more kidlets to the world. Enough of my friends are still childless that I don't face parties in which I'm the only one that's there for the cocktails and not Bongo the Clown. Still, baby talk does creep in in the scariest of ways from time to time. Social pressure might be bad, but biological pressure is a hell of a lot worse.

I was reminded today that regardless of whether I have found Mr. Right or not, my body may not accommodate starting a family once I finally get to a point where that's wanted or logical in any way. As much as I'd like to shout, "ya right! My mom was 37 when she had me!" it's true: your body makes this decision for you. Some women can get pregnant easily at any age, some women can't get pregnant at all, and some have a hell of a lot more chance in their twenties than they do in their thirties.

Which of the above categories do I fit into? Which do I want to fit into? In honesty, I haven't a clue. But as my future plans now include a grad program that has me graduating and ready to embark on an entirely new career at 30 - I suppose as reluctant as I am to start thinking about this, I probably should. It seems pretty premature given my naked ring finger, but it's harder and harder to ignore that whether I'm ready or not for what lays ahead, if I want to be prepared, I need to start planning. Ugh.



*Do yourself a favor and google images for "babies" - it's kind of terrifying what comes up. Also - I think the image that I chose will only be funny to people who know me in real life.

back to the real world

I fear my post titles are going to be a bit trite for awhile. Today was the first day I've had to breathe and take it all in since I've been back, so naturally I spent most of it catching up on Brothers and Sisters online while attempting to make sense of the suitcase explosion that is my room (or rather, my roomate's room, as this is now her apartment and she moved into my old room). I'm now a bit more "ordered" with a finite to-do list, a stack of bills and mail for which I need to request an address change and a nearly complete pile of laundry to get me through my last week in SoCal. It's as if nothing, and everything, has changed.

I went out last night with some girlfriends and it took me a full two drinks to remotely start to mellow out in the sea of bar hoppers I found myself in. Granted, it's never been my scene, but I've always been able to make it work for the sake of a few laughs, some silly pictures and a night out with the girls. Trouble is, it all seems so damn pointless right now. I don't want to begrudge people the right to a good time, but it's true that once your eyes are opened to certain things, you change in ways you can't always help, and apparently my fun factor has gone down. Pretending like the world's not out there, like life is at its best in the middle of a crowded bar, just isn't an option for me right now.

Today I broke into tears watching a scene on t.v. where a soldier tells another soldier that he's going back to Iraq, and the look on the face of the one who's safely home after three tours of duty said it all - a tragic look of sadness and near hopelessness. The guilt of what's going on in my own country and the lives of people my age who are on the line - I had this sudden ephiphany that it makes as little sense as the chaos I confronted in the lives of the kids I worked with while I was gone. Such different circumstances - one the product of diplomacy and international relations, the other the effects of an ill-managed health crisis and the after effects of colonial expansion. But tangible comparisons can be made, none moreso than the bigger picture connection that this is humanity at its worst. People having to give their lives for all the wrong reasons, and the majority of their peers, countrymen or fellow humans oblivious all the while.