In my own time

I was reading Dre's* blog last night and something he wrote inspired this honest ramble:

I'm often faced with thinking about my life's path compared to society's view of how it should unfold. Ideally, I'd like to finish school, settle in a great career, meet someone along the way and then get married. That's pretty much the traditional order. We can talk about the babies after we agree on the house and mortgage. Some in society say that I should be married with kids by now. Yes, at the ripe old age of 24. They say it's best to pop those babies out in your twenties. Whatever. As far as I know, none of the people that I know in my age group planned on having kids. Condoms break or get discarded and shit or babies happen. Their lives are on hold. They're struggling and juggling while I'm trying to figure out what to have for dinner. Yet generations before us still believe that we need to be pushing out babies and building families in our early twenties. This has been the subject many times at dinner with my ladies and some of the fellas because we are constantly being bombarded with these questions. When are you getting married? When are you having children? We all agree that were young, they're crazy and it is not the time. The way I see it is, back in the day there weren't as many options and opportunities like what we have today, especially for women. So building that family while trying to build their lives went hand in hand.

Things have changed, my friend. More women are in college than men. 4 for every 1 to be exact. More women are prevalent in the workforce than before. We're buying our homes before there is a ring or a man. In general, we are all doing it for ourselves first. We're laying out our future properly and having a life of our own, growing into our own and seizing opportunities. Men, I know you're doing it too. I haven't dismissed your efforts to build your foundations.

Now, I look at people like my mother and I've set myself along her timetable without noticing it. She started her nursing career at 17, traveled all of Europe by 27, got married at 28, enjoyed her marriage for five years while she got her degrees and then brought sunshine into the world(me). When I think about her compared to the parents of some of my friends who had them in their early twenties, I see her path as the logical way. Their parents struggled trying to bring them up and grow up themselves and I respect them, but they tell them constantly what they went through so their kids would take their time. Yet, some of these off springs still repeat the pattern. I have friends who are thinking of having kids now just so they can "have a life" in their forties as they put it. That's immaturity and selfishness at its best. What some are lacking to understand is that family is not a chore. They become your life. You shouldn't be trying to get them off the to do list so you can "live" after. But I digress..

Let's look at my friend Suzzie*. She's gotten her career well underway, has her car and now she's looking for her condo. Sweetheart is 26. When we talked about life recently she said her next step is marriage. Traditional. I admire how she took the steps to get to each milestone and laid out a foundation for her future family which is most important. I mean essentially that is the way it should be. Julie* and Jazzy* aren't far behind her. They both are now 26 with their own apartments and careers. No children yet. They are dating. Exploring. Living. They are building their nests for the future. I tend to think anything else is backwards. I want to be able to give my children more than I grew up with and that's ideally what parents should want for their babies. Make their lives at least 50 percent better than yours .

On another note, I think about some people who get married early and I wonder what will happen to them. I know I am not who I was when I was 21 and I wont be the same woman at 27. A lot of people get tied down early or enter these serious relationships before 25. I used to be one of them at one point, but then I realized how extremely important it has been for me to be able to grow by myself. I can't imagine who I'd be if me and B for Betrayal* were still together. People tend to lose themselves in these young relationships, especially if they haven't established who they are before it. They never get a chance to fully develop their sense of self on their own. At 18 to at the least 25 you are still establishing who you are and you're constantly changing. Don't get me wrong,some people are able to grow together from a young age, but we all know that they would be different people if they grew on their own. Personally, I'd rather know who I am now and continue to grow with someone else. I don't want to be that missing piece to anyone's puzzle in which they don't know who they are without me. That is all they know. This is why so many people who are unhappy in relationships in my age group refuse to leave. They always say," I don't want to start over. I don't know anything else." Sad, but true. I want to know who I am, you know who you are and then we will complement each other-Not depend on each other to define ourselves. But again, I digress.

Anyway, even though 28 is ideal for starting the family life, I won't die if I'm not there yet and anytime sooner is ludicrous to me. I want to travel, plant my feet in my career, buy my house, love my man-whoever he will be, walk down the aisle, then have my babies and devote myself to my family. They will then be my life and travel partners. It's amazing how I want the best for them and I haven't even met them yet. However, the only way that I can give them my best is by doing my best now to get there. I'm not taking forever, but I'm not trying to put myself on some assumed time line. I'm laying it out wisely in my own time and no one else's.