Hogwashery

There are all these articles circulating about the mild panic that descends on a woman in her mid to late twenties.  Regarding? Oh the usual things.  Being single and childless.  Having nothin’ to say for yourself, I guess.  Hogwash, I say!  Utter hogwash.  If you are feeling these twinges, then you will most likely end up hitting these milestones. 

I haven’t felt even the slightest degree of panic about these supposed gaps in my life.  In fact, my panic usually descends when one of these much-lauded milestones seems to move even several millimeters closer to future life reality.  I will go out of my way, at this point, to guarantee that I will not get married and have babies.  I won’t go as far to presume that this will never change about me, but from where I stand now, this is how I feel. 

We are all different, you see.  Some of us aspire to entirely different milestones than the usual cultural or biological ones.  That’s the whole reason why articles about that, while intended to be enlightening, totally irritate me.  It frames everything around the same traditions that I wish to flagrantly disregard.  It’s like a vehement atheist who can only frame his or her belief system around the absence of a god, rather than revealing more meaningful glimpses into their spirituality that have nothing to do with the concept of a god at all.

I don’t really see these oh-I’m so untraditional and 27 and unmarried and without career or children but starting to get nervous when people talk about it and probably want to do these things anyway so I’m not a failure as a woman- articles as feminist at all. They just further validate that our role as women, at the end of the day, really IS to be a mother and a wife.  Or have a successful career.  Basically to have something culturally-validated to say about themselves.

Wherever you go, go with all your heart.  But for the love of Thor and Odin, frame yourself in a context that uniquely fits you. Comparison to others is the most abstract thing a person can do and also the most hurtful.  Reading articles like that simply makes a young woman compare herself to millions of faceless young women, rather than looking within herself to see how much she has grown as an individual over the years, and smile over the infinities of tiny and meaningful moments she has had with herself and others. 

Right, so the fact that I sacrifice a goat to the gods of fortune every morning I wake up and am marvelously unmarried and without small children who belong to me, is perfect for me.  The fact that my milestones are seemingly small, innocuous, or bizarre when compared to tangible things like using my ovaries and paying lots of money to become really territorial with one person, doesn’t matter.  I hope to always celebrate the happiness’s of others, in whatever form they may come in.  Celebrating the marriage of two different couples this summer were the highlights of the season for me, because it was right for them and it made them happy.  What also makes me happy? That these same blissfully-wedded friends appreciate and are also engladdened at the events and things in my life that make me happy. 

We are who we are who we are.