I understand that my last article was posted only a week ago, but there’s a thought nagging at me that won’t quiet down. It’s not even a complete thought, either. It’s this fuzzy little thing, kind of like TV static (I’m aging myself), sitting in some random corner of my brain.
Being a grown woman is a logistical nightmare.
I’m not talking about the mundane daily logistics of being a woman, which are a nightmare in themselves. Getting dressed according to societal expectations while still looking the way you want to, keeping yourself out of harm’s way, putting on makeup, doing your hair, all that crazy stuff. Much of which I tend to gloss over as a short-haired, barely-wears-makeup kind of gal.
No, I’m talking about the logistics of building an entire life.
If you read my last blog post, you’ll know that I recently sobered up from a year-long office-crush flirtationship. And before you ask, no, this wasn’t a completely one-sided, I read too deeply into everything situation. Which, to be honest, might have been more embarrassing but somehow better in retrospect.
The problem was that, intentionally or not, he’d kept me hanging around for eight months without mentioning that he’d already caught a fish from the sea and had been in a committed relationship with said fish the entire time. All while remaining exactly as flirty as before. (How committed are you while stringing someone else along? That’s a can of worms I shall not get into.)
And somehow, that whole ridiculous situation sent me spiraling into a much bigger question.
Am I wasting my time anywhere else in my life?
Are there decisions I should be actively making instead of waiting for things to happen?
It made me realize that, at 29, I am the sole bearer of authority over my own life. Which is refreshingly freeing and, at the same time, a little terrifying.
I live by myself in an apartment contracted to me. I wake up every morning to the sounds of multiple alarms I set for myself because my mother isn’t here to wake me up like she did when I was a teenager. I get to choose whether I eat breakfast or lunch, whether I eat dinner out or make something out of what’s in my fridge. I get to tell myself that drinking five glasses of wine at a wine bar is reasonable if I can get myself back on the train and home with little to no problems.
I get to choose, but choosing comes with responsibilities.
I found out through my stupid office situation that when other people get involved in my life now, there’s a chance we won’t be operating under the same overarching understanding of the terms and conditions. At least with your parents, you were their terms and conditions.
Everything I bring up recently seems to revolve around love and relationships, since I guess that’s the theme I’m most closely exploring lately. If you come for me saying that moving on from my office crush between late August and now is too fast, I will present you with this: I choose when to find new love.
That’s still my jurisdiction.
So what do I mean by the logistics of being an adult woman?
At 29, or I guess in that weird young-adult-but-not-too-young-adult-woman stage, living free and single, you start to wonder, Will I find someone and get married?
Because quite a few of your friends are married. Some are entering motherhood. Most of your friends are in relationships running toward marriage, and you’re sitting there like, Well, fuck. Where the hell is my husband? To pull from RAYE’s hit song.
I understand that not everyone wants to get married and have children, and that’s a completely valid decision to make. But through my stupid interactions with my coworker crush, it has become apparent that I do want to settle down and create my own little happy family with a devastatingly handsome, well-off Japanese man.
The funny thing is, marriage and motherhood weren’t particularly high on my list of priorities before all this.
Somewhere along the way, I fell for not only the person, but also the idea of the future he talked about. The possibility of raising children alongside someone I genuinely loved. (Why did he share such personal life aspirations with me? That’s a question for him, not me. If you find out, do tell. I am curious.)
There’s something incredibly beautiful about the thought of two people creating an entirely new person together. Not just someone who shares their genetics, but someone who grows up surrounded by their lives, thoughts, cultures, values, and ideas. Someone who is shaped by the particular combination of those two people, yet becomes an entirely unique individual.
And I think I finally understand what people mean when they say that having children is, in some ways, an act of ego.
Because the child certainly didn’t ask to be born.
It’s the parents who want to create that life. It’s their love, their hopes, and their desire to build something together that set the whole thing in motion.
And suddenly, I find myself wanting something that would fundamentally change the freedom I’ve spent my adult life building.
I think that’s the logistical nightmare.
I love my freedom, but I also want to negotiate a new set of terms and conditions with some Japanese man. I want to be responsible for someone other than myself. Which would make my freedom a little less free, but perhaps a whole lot heavier. And maybe more meaningful. More purposeful, even.
Not that my life as it is now lacks meaning or purpose. Far from it. I have a career I care about, friends I love, and a life I’ve built for myself that I genuinely enjoy. But there’s another kind of life I can suddenly imagine wanting, too.
Maybe the real logistical nightmare is that I want to be a wife, and I want to be a mother, but I don’t want to diminish what I’ve already built for myself, especially my career, to achieve either of those things.
Single, independent woman Lana has done a pretty damn good job of standing on her own two feet. She’s financially independent, she’s built a career for herself, and when life threw a factory closure and the threat of layoffs her way, she packed up her life and moved across the globe for another opportunity.
And I’m quite proud of her, actually.
And I’d hate to see her diminished by her devastatingly handsome husband and her children.
Granted, I fear I am too loud and too comfortable in my own skin to be diminished.
And quite frankly, if I want marriage, children, and enough room for my career, I don’t have time to spend another eight months stuck in an office flirtationship. I need to start actively working toward the life I want, because it’s frighteningly easy to let everything flow past you while you’re busy waiting for something to happen.
Maybe what I need to start doing is assert dominance over my own freedom.
I suppose I could thank my office crush, but I don’t think he deserves it. He’s now just a part of the TV static that won’t turn off.
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