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| Shirt: Marshalls, Skirt: Bebe, Shoes: ?, Bag: Target, Flower Ring: a gift from my girlfriends Heather and Krista |
“It was weird… I was the
only one at the table who was not engaged. All they talked about were
their rings, dresses, colors, etc. I had NOTHING to say. I’m not even
dating anyone right now. They did not talk about anything else at all. I
wanted to leave.
I was so ready to go. I felt reeeeeeeally inadequate.”
That was part of a conversation that I had at work today. One of my
friends/co-workers was talking about a girls-only going away dinner
that she attended for a friend a couple of weeks ago. She and her
friends are in their early/mid 20’s and out of an
entire dinner party, she was the only one who was not “even close” to
being engaged. It made her feel small. Insignificant. Kind of bad. Maybe
worried a little.
It’s a common phenomenon (especially for women), right?! It feels
like “everyone” is doing something at the same exact time but you
(getting engaged/married/buying a house/having kids, etc.); and when you
are on the outside of that trend, it can feel a
little strange. Did you get married and have kids when the “rest” of
your friends were in college? Did you wait to have your first when your
friend’s children were in the 5th
grade? Are you gay/lesbian and still (in some cases)
waiting to be able to get married? Are you single? I don’t mean
not-married “single”, I mean… straight up single, going through the list
of toads you seem destined to have to kiss before truly falling in
love? Are you young and divorced? Find yourself starting
over? Are you pregnant, not married, worried about that stigma? Are you
having fertility issues? A single mom with a couple of kids worried
about whether or not you will ever find someone to share your life with?
Did you have your heart set on one thing happening
and it went the complete opposite way????? Or… do you just not seem to
want the exact same things that everyone else seems to want? Or at least
not at the time they do?? It’s just life. Right? There is no such thing
as a sure thing or the right or wrong way
of doing things. Your life is YOUR life and sometimes, regardless of how
well you have planned everything out, sometimes… shht just happens. You
can make decisions, good and bad, but it happens regardless.
I have been wondering a lot lately why it seems like such a big
deal to NOT be doing things at the same time everyone else is. I think
it’s because we have been programmed that way to a degree. That is how
we have become wired. We have always been “grouped”
together and always been in competition to stand out from the crowd, to
excel. To do things better, faster, stronger. Most of us go to school at
5 years old, get our driver’s license around 16, graduate HS somewhere
around 18, graduate college in our early
20’s.
It makes sense that we feel like we have to do things at the same
time. I mean, up until adulthood all of our major milestones happen with
large groups of people our own age. So it is really hard to let go of
the feeling that you are “weird”, “off” or
somehow “inadequate” if you don’t follow suit. Here’s the beauty though…
once you are an adult… you get to choose your path. Choose where you
want to live, what you want to do, who you want to be with, if you want
kids, if you want to be single, if you want
to stay in a relationship (or leave one that does not work). You may get
hurt, and you may hurt people (even if that was the last thing you ever
wanted to do) but it boils down to choices.
I was talking to a girlfriend of mine the other night who got her heart broken this week. (Well, I don’t know if her heart was broken-broken,
but she was definitely experiencing some pretty intense shock and
disappointment.) She alluded to
the fact that she may be destined to a life of loneliness… of being
single. Forever. She is in her 30’s. No dude, no kids. What she does
have though is a job, a family who loves her, lots of friends, an active
social life, and she’s hot. I haven’t told her
this yet, but I got to thinking… whether she is single or not is her
choice. She does not have to be single. She could get herself a man in 5
minutes if she wanted. The decision she has made though, is not to
settle. Not to settle for convenient, for less than
real love. She has all the power in the world. The same with my friend
at dinner, the one who is not engaged. If she really wanted to be
engaged, she could be. She is beautiful, smart, sweet, etc. She is
choosing not to be engaged at this point in her life.
And here’s the amazing thing… choice is power. It’s big, boss-biiiiich
power.
It’s a BEAUTIFUL thing to fall in love, get hitched, have a family,
raise said family, etc. It’s probably one of the best gifts that we are
human beings can ever have. It’s amazing. I love my family more than
life itself. But… it’s not paint by number.
Not fill in the blank.
Some mothers who work outside of the home, feel
like they are somehow “better” than mother’s who don’t. Others feel
like they are not as “good” as mother’s who stay home. They are both
wrong. Women with husbands that they have been with for years long for a good, hot,
steamy, pushed up against the wall French kiss. The kind that their
single friends get when they are falling into new love. Women who are
single long to change their last name, to get married, to get out of "the scene”. Women
without kids want to get pregnant, have a baby, to be called
Mommy. Women who hear “Moooommmmyyy” yelled 500 times a day long for 5
minutes of silence, and to lose the last 10 lbs of baby weight, and to be
able to go to the bathroom alone.
Everyone wants a little something that they don't have... whether they would ever admit it or not.
There is nothing wrong with you if your life does not look like
“everyone else’s”. It’s YOUR life, and chances are, if you start
thinking about all you DO have, instead of all you DON’T have, you’ll
realize that it’s pretty friggin’ rad. The comparison
game is daaangerous and it sucks. So knock it off. And... to those
jerk-offs who make you feel like a leper because you are on your own
road… screw them. You don’t need friends like that.
Haters gonna hate.
And this beautiful poem is for my girlfriends... especially for my friend (MM). You know who you are...
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