Further Proof of my Genius

Oh yeah, it's the 'got candy?' jack-o-lantern alongside the 'puking up candy' jack-o-latern... admit it, you wish you'd done it first.

Cynical, Judgemental, Single and Barren at twenty-two

Last night I had a nightmare that I got engaged. Not a dream, a nightmare. I walked into a room filled with family members and I was wearing my grandmother's ring on my left hand. I knew it meant I was engaged, that ring has been intended for me for years. I knew my family thought it was a terrible idea from their expressions. I knew I felt sick to my stomach. I felt embarassed to be engaged at only 22, and I just kept trying to explain to my cousins and aunts and uncles that he proposed in public and I felt like I couldn't say no. I don't know who my fiance was, I don't know the circumstances of the relationship, but I do know, the last thing in the world I wanted, was to be engaged- and I was.

This threw me a litte.

I have always known what I want in my life. Very clearly. I know that I have a detailed 5 year career plan very plainly laid out and I am already working very hard to make it a reality. My priority has always been my career and where I want to put myself in life as an independent and successful woman.

I know that I will always put a relationship second until I have accomplished those goals. I am not one of those girls who cries wishing they had a boyfriend, longing for the fairytale of a handsome man to rescue me. I don't need to be rescued from anything, and even if I did I wouldn't need a man to help me do it. If I eventually find someone who loves me enough to put up with my bullshit for the rest of their life than that's just fine by me.

If people want to get married when they're young, they have that right. Personally, I think I would be devestated. My twenties are for me and I will take every opportunity to experience new things and achieve my goals and no relationship is going to hinder that. No apologies, that is just how I feel. Maybe some girls can have it all- the career, the relationship, the drive, but I can't. I know myself and I know I can only focus on one thing right now, and I'm okay with that. This is not to say that if someone came along who I felt I had a connection with I would avoid a relationship. I'm just saying that they would have to understand that I have a very clear plan for myself and they may not fit into it the way they want to.

Though I can't help but have some troubling thoughts lingering at the back of my mind... have I gotten myself so into the mindset of career-first, relationship-later that I am blinding myself to opportunities in my personal life? I woke up in cold sweats after an imaginary engagement... what if I never pull myself out of my career-first, relationship-later way of living I have decided to have in my twenties? Lately I feel as though I have been thrust back into the fifties. I keep hearing about girls I know who are my age getting married, having babies and playing house. I'm sorry if this is socially unacceptable to say but if I were married with kids right now I would wake up and vomit every morning.

Not to say that eventually I would not love to have all those things, a domestic life so to speak, but I feel like in this day and age we as females are given opportunities we should be taking advantage of to move ourselves ahead even more into equality. But where do I stop living for myself and living for someone else? For someone who thinks she doesn't want a relationship I spend an awful lot of time thinking about them- about how I don't need one- but thinking about them nonetheless.

What I don't understand is what would possess a woman to give up her twenties, a time of freedom and expression and independence, to be tied down to somebody? To give so much of herself to a relationship when she could be seeing so many amazing things? Maybe there is more of a balance than I think. Maybe I am cynical. Maybe, just maybe, I have become so focused on driving my goals that I have forgotten what it is I thought I wanted when I was five: to get married and have babies.

But I'm not five anymore, and I have seen too much to forget my place in this world. I am privledged, and I'm going to take advantage of the rights I have to work and be educated and independent that I know so many women in this world still don't have. I think what is really bothering me, what is really pissing me off, is that I'm twenty-two, I'm motherfucking twenty-two, and I am forced to worried about this bullshit. If I don't want to get married and have kids until I'm thirty than that is completely my perogitive. So why do I find myself judging people for choosing the lifestyle so different from mine, which is completely their perogitive? Now I am cynical, judgemental, single and barren. At twenty-two.

So as I sit in my heated home with running water and food in the cupboards, knowing I have health coverage and the right to vote, the right to speak my mind, the right to an education, the right to choose what I want for myself, I can't help but cast a judgemental eye on the same women who have all this but merely get married and have babies. Am I a bad person? Am I an enlightened person? Am I simply shortsighted? For someone who has declared with authority her place in this world, I am suddenly feeling very lost.

Any takers?

Since no one offered to buy me that last purse, I'm very kindly offering to let someone buy me this one. I know, I'm that nice.

by the way my mailing address is
68 Stayner Dr
Waverley NS
B2R 1C2

just in case.

Perfection

If anyone would like to buy me this, I would be perfectly fine with it.