Ive never been more plagued by the human condition in my life than when I turned 25. Being in your mid-twenties is so weird. I don’t really know how to describe it, it’s a restless feeling. Maybe it’s uncertainty or maybe its desire for change… I don’t know.
I know I’ve already mentioned this in my first post, but I feel like I ride the highest of highs and the lowest of lows sometimes. The funny thing is my career has always been at the forefront of my life, but it’s also the least of my worries. My job is the only thing I find myself to ever be sure about… The rest is in the wind for all I know.
It feels like I have no idea what’s coming next.
It feels like a lack of stability? Buying a house? Marriage? Kids? I don’t know. It’s so disorienting sometimes not knowing where I am in my life. Every person is headed in such dramatically different directions at this stage, there isn’t even a standard to measure up to.
I have friends who are married and unmarried, have kids and don’t have kids, are working and are unemployed.
Why is everything so expensive? It almost feels like I am trading one life for another when it comes to the ways I spend my money. Paying bills is a part of life, sure, but a downpayment on a house? I save all my extra dollars to go and be house broke one day?
You know what I could do with 80K? I could travel for a year. Hell, a few years. Is this a matter of priorities? I’m 25 and I still feel like I am not old enough to be dealing with this.
For those of you who know me, and even those of you who don’t, I spend a lot of time talking to other people. I work in healthcare, it happens. In all these different conversations I have, there is one single thing that always stays the same. Don’t. Wait. Don’t wait to take that trip, don’t wait to make that change, don’t wait.
With that said…
I have also never met someone that wishes they had children sooner than they did. Never met someone who wishes they got married sooner than they did. I get asked all the time if I am married or if I have children. When my response to both questions is “No” the response is always “You’re so young, it can’t wait, do everything you can before you do.”
For one, the presumption of your life being over when you get married or have children has always fried me, as a woman especially. I say all of this as a person who does not have children, so please accept with a grain of salt, but I just can’t bear the thought of losing myself to being a wife or to being a mom. Yes, your life and your role in life changes DRAMATICALLY when you get married and even more when you have kids, and of course your priorities change.
But I would rather never experience it than lose myself in the process.
I loathe the idea.
I have been with my partner for almost a decade, and we have had the privilege that few people get to watch each other grow up through our teens and early twenties, but not without growing pains. Figuring out who I am and what I want is a never ending journey and I am thankful to have a person to support me through the good, bad, and the ugly parts of it.
We might not share all the same interests, but he wants me to still experience them. Better yet, he will do them with me just because he knows how important it is to me.
People make having kids look so easy. I know raising kids is FAR from easy, but I mean the decision to have kids. I’ve always wanted kids and the idea of it still scares the shit out of me. Then there’s people who don’t even give a second thought about it? Insane.
I live in a culture that is very relationship centered. Marriage and children are less of a choice (IMO) and more of a foregone conclusion. By 25 most people here are married if not with children by now. I don’t know where i fit in to all of it, but i’m definitely going to keep trying to figure it out… day by day.
– Hay
