19.10.08

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.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

i never knew you had a blog!
anyways, i love this post... though we talked a bit about this topic in the car (with Ash), the sentence that really hit me was "my twenties are for me...".
you're completely right.
some of us need to remember that *ie: me*

here's to being independant and putting Leigh and Megs first

i <3 you!

Ben said...

Oh. My. God.

Megan's writing for the internet finally?

THANK YOU.

Ben said...

By the way, your sassy header is making me moist where it counts.

Erin said...

Wow. As someone who got married at 23, I can say that I have never once felt tied down or that I gave up my twenties. I have loved every minute of my life. I have the job I want, I do what I want, and I have a great husband to come home to at night. Marriage isn't about being tied down...if it was, I wouldn't be married. My twenties are still for me even though I'm married. Getting married young isn't for everyone, but it certainly doesn't mean that I threw my life away.

Essentially Me said...

I agree with this 100% and only wished that I was your age when I figured it all out. You are not a bad person for wanting to put your career first. I think it's the smartest thing a girl can do. The right guy will come along when the time is right. Funnily, things like that seem to work themselves out.

BTW, came via Ben.

Rachel said...

You are not short sighted or a bad person. I got married right out of college at 22, had a daughter at 24. It works for me, but my mold doesn't fit everyone. Yes I get to say I'm a married mom, but I also can't say that I am climbing the career ladder right now. I'll probably have to go back to school to catch up. I'm happy with that and you are happy with your life. I think in this day and age it's better to marry for love rather than age.


and now I shall pack up my soapbox and go home ;)

Phil said...

I arrived via Twitter, and Ben, too.

Here's what I've got: I think letting yourself be yourself is the biggest factor. And as far as priorities go, I admire your career goals. Better to have those and focus on them than to get caught up in a relationship and then really hurt someone because you can't provide enough attention to sustain a solid relationship.

Speaking as someone who's attached (and driven, like you), I think I just got lucky: my partner knew from the moment he met me that I would be leaving the state to get my master's degree, and he's been supportive to the point that he refused to let me stay in state on account of him, since he knew how much I didn't want to go to the same university from which I had just graduated.

It hasn't been easy, and my relationship, being long-distance, certainly makes things hard right now, but I know, in the end, that it is 100% worth it. My time is now, and my partner's time is now, and we're in that time together. :)

Kyla Bea said...

Found you through twitter = )

I think it has a lot to do with how you view relationships. I've never felt compelled to be in a relationship, I would rather be single than with someone who isn't right for me, but when I met my husband we just clicked. I'm only 23, it took some wrapping my head around that I was getting married before I was 26 or 27, but it's what's right for us.

There is no loss of freedom in a good relationship, if we want to go out by ourselves we do, sometimes I want to travel across the country by myself to visit a friend, I'll just do it. If my husband wants to go back to school or travel to Europe for a year that'll be an amazing adventure!

Being married "young" isn't something to be embarrassed about - but being with someone who is wrong for you, or settling for something that's not who you are is something really serious that can be completely nightmarish, no matter what your legal status is.

The thing is that those relationships are like that way before everyone hits the church.

Anonymous said...

Ben sent me over. Not directly. Though he is kinda bossy.