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| I used that How Old app and I think it knows my daughter better than I do. |
Last night I got a text from a guy friend who had read my
blog from last week, the one about the List. We ended up talking for a while
and he told me that the blog made him reflect on whether or not the reasons on
his list in the past were important enough to hold up and stay single. My thought is that if they were at the time,
then they probably were and the only reason he is second-guessing them now is
because he himself has changed....that's the thing about hindsight. Without
divulging his personal story, I will be vague and say that he is in his
thirties now and has never been married.
He is feeling the clock ticking, like he needs to get started, mainly because people look at him
and wonder why he has never been married and they tell him that he had better
hurry up and have kids before he gets too old. Then he asked me if I feel like the pressure
is off of me because I have been married.
At first I said no, then I thought about it and restated my answer…..
Yes. When you have 4
kids already, it’s easy not to feel pressured to have any more. When you have been married and learn about
yourself and love and relationships and your quirks and your desires and your
faults and what makes you do the things you do, no, you don't feel as forced to
dive in and do it again. Your reasons
for doing it again have changed and pressure is not a variable. BUT, it’s my opinion that no one should feel
pressure.
Don’t you find it odd that the majority of the population finds his or her soul
mate immediately out of college? Isn’t
it kind of interesting that everyone goes to 10 weddings a year for about three
years in their 20’s? I think we
underestimate how much our bodies tell us to hurry up, settle down, procreate,
and then sadly, a large percentage of us wind up thinking “did I actually choose any of this” when we are 35. My point is not to discredit anyone who has
been happily married from high school on, college on, whatever, more power to you….but some of us don’t have
that experience, like my friend. We walk broken or seemingly unlit paths that get us there, and that's ok too. My friend feeling pressure because we are told we are supposed to graduate, find a
spouse, buy a house with a picket fence, have kids, and work until you get that
gold watch isn’t right.
Doing everything “normally”
and the way “you’re supposed to” because
that’s what society says doesn’t suck because it’s boring, it sucks because it sometimes
isn’t authentic and things don’t work unless you are doing things for the right
reasons. We are all different. We all have different baggage and personalities and don't develop the same ways. What I have learned over the
years is that life is already hard enough when you make your decisions based on logic,
feelings, and what you want. It doesn’t
always work out even when you do it authentically, so why add to that “what you are supposed to do?”
When I was a little girl, I played with dolls
constantly. I used to carry like 12 at a
time, so it’s not surprising at all to my mother that I had 4 kids. I also constantly danced and sang and put on
plays for the neighbors and imagined and daydreamed like most children. I
wanted to be a writer, a news reporter, a lawyer, an actress, I wanted to
travel and I definitely wanted a bunch of children. I wanted to do everything as a child. Then I became a teenager. I didn’t have a
concept of what I would do when I would grow up because I didn’t think I was
ever going to grow up, or I was in denial and didn’t want to. However, I did see myself as two different
people. I thought I could be the type
who could go exploring, travel, write, and be free, but I also saw myself with
a husband and a bunch of kids, cooking dinner and staying home to take care of
everyone. I wanted a husband and kids
above all else, but there was one
problem with the latter…I wasn’t sure I believed in marriage. I didn’t want to get married because I didn’t
want to get divorced and I thought Shania Twain was an idiot for singing “You’re still the one.” I used to say as a 17-year-old girl “You can’t sing that song until you’re 80 and
about to die because you never know if you will get cheated on, get bored,
divorced….” Shania Twain’s husband cheated on her with her best friend 10
years later, if you remember, so sadly, I was right about that song, which
broke my little heart. I’m not sure if
my parents realized how cynical I was because I had a boyfriend, but the truth
is, I always felt smothered and didn’t want to be tied down by anyone. I think my boyfriends could tell that I was
hiding something and then they smothered me even more. I had a boyfriend because everyone else did, I thought I was supposed to and I thought it would help me scrape out my
fears of commitment. By constantly having a boyfriend, I could ignore the fact
that I had some serious fears, skip over all of my issues and be normal. To go even further, I always wound up with controlling guys. I constantly wonder, and hopefully I am wrong, if it's because I didn't trust myself and that in some way, I thought they could make me stay. I thought when I was a teenager, surely if I can commit to this asshole, then I don’t have commitment
issues, right? No. In fact, by forcing
myself to be “normal” and ignoring
the issues I had because of my parents’ multiple divorces and my desire to do whatever I wanted, I landed in situations that were not good. I
also think I was a bit of a free spirit and hated it. I didn’t understand it at all and I wish I
had. I was afraid of myself, of wanting to be free, and I was afraid I would never settle down. I have never said that out loud. And my gosh, I was YOUNG! Wasn't I supposed to want to be free?
I have consistently done everything backwards in my life, sometimes on accident, sometimes rebelliously or stubbornly, sometimes because fate said otherwise and what I
have noticed is that my friends who did everything “the way they were supposed to” ended up learning a lot of the same
things or experienced the same things, just in another order. This is just more proof for me that we all have to be real and true and find our own way. We will learn if we care.
I am happy that I had two babies at 20 because they showed
me that I can commit and love unconditionally.
I am happy that I have taken leaps of faith, even when I got
burned. I am happy that I am not
constantly blaming everyone else for my mistakes and baggage, but seeing where
I was also accountable. No one can
make my ghosts and fears go away except God, not even denial, and everything that makes me strong and scared
and everything that makes my heart soar and break has a history and a story worth listening to. It’s been
an experience to allow all of that to surface, it's been heavy to feel it and watch myself transform into a person who will from now on only do things that feel right and
true.
My advice to people who feel pressure to do things the way “they are supposed to” is this:
the only thing that should guide what you are supposed to do is God and if you
trust Him, you will learn everything in his time, see everything in his time,
and you will do what you are here to do…..discover who you are, what your
purpose is, and meet the people you are destined to meet and teach and learn
from.
One of my favorite quotes is “In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently
you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.” Buddha.
Do those three things.
You’ll be fine. Tell anyone pressuring you that you are on the flight behind them and you'll see them later.
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