The big 3-0

I talked to a friend today via text. All day. Which is normal and happens occasionally. I asked her what she wanted for her birthday (17 days and counting), and you guessed that it will be her 30th.
Even though she is doing well, accomplished, educated, loved by more people that you can count on several pairs of hands she is dreading the big 3-0.
Why you ask?
Because she thought she'd be married and have kids by now.
As if everything else is worthless. As if everything else is merely something to bide time until a woman can be truly complete...with a man.
So I was frustrated, and I said as much to a few co-workers. Who proceeded to tell me that I didn't, couldn't understand because I still had almost a year until 30, because my biological clock hadn't started ticking yet and on and on and on.
To which I say pish posh. 30 is not some magical number that automatically starts a decline in a woman's ability to marry. Sure it is harder to conceive and push a baby out of your vagina...but in case ya'll haven't noticed there are...oh, I don't know...millions and millions of babies and orphans.
It really bothers me when a) people tell me that one day in the next 8 or so months I will start to panic because I have "wasted" all of these years and I still have no man and b) when they look at me with obvious pity because I'm deluded myself into thinking that my life is complete and well rounded with no man to rescue me from living alone.

Now now, before all of the wives and mothers I know get their hackles raised I'm not trying to do the same thing on the other side of the line. It's great that you're married. It's great that you have children. I see that (most) of you are happy. I see that your children are beautiful and lovely and perfect in every way (most of the time, but they're kids I'll cut them some slack). But my lack of desire to mate wildly and settle into domesticity isn't something I need you to fix.

Furthermore, one of the women that was telling me about how devastated she was that her boyfriend didn't propose on her birthday (the big 3-0) and that she cried for hours about the fact that she wasn't married...this woman...is the same one that on most days is telling me over the cubicles, "Don't EVER get married Bethany, it's so not worth it"
Could I one day want to get married? Sure. Could I someday want to acquire a child somehow? Sure. For the time being however please note, that while I love kids and think they are cute and cuddly and wonderful people my ovaries and uterus do not (I repeat) do not leap every time I think about having them.
So stop shoving the idea that all of those overwhelming crippling desires will happen on my 30th birthday.

Lastly, this woman, she also was pointing out that she feels the same way about 40. She mentioned some people that aren't that much older then her that are more "successful" and are paid more money, have more corporate power...and yet here she is in her 30s and not close to attaining that success.
People...seriously.
It is a waste of your time to compare yourself to other people and use that as a measuring stick for yourself. You determine how happy you're going to be. You can't control what people do or say to you but you can determine how you react. (Hmmm....sounds sort of like advice I should learn how to take)

All I'm saying is, be happy you're married, be thrilled you have children, but please stop thinking, saying, insisting, that my life is less or I am somehow broken because I'm not a wife or mother. Because I'm happy single, I'm happy in this fantastically awesome new home laying on this super comfortable new bed that I share with Gertrude the grumpy and Agnes the hair tie crack addict.











PS: Jake there hasn't been a post like this for awhile, I was beginning to think it was ok to be single! Show you what I know....