Well, it's officially happened.
Everyone in my family is either married or on the way to marriage.
Well, everyone except for myself, of course.
My baby sister got married this month. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to attend the ceremony (it was very sudden because her husband is in the Air Force and they needed to tie the knot before he could be shipped away unexpectedly), so two days before my sister's big day I started crying at work out of sadness for not being able to go. (By the way, if you cry, your boss will let you go. Write that down.) One of my coworkers saw my distress and asked what was wrong. When I told her my sister was getting married on Friday she put her hand on my shoulder and said, "Awww... and you're going to be the only single one left in your family?"
And so began the arm-wrestling contest of marriage versus single-dom in my head.
First of all, I am not a completely self-absorbed bitch. So no, I would not sob silently out of selfishness that my sister had found her happiness with another person before I'd done the same.
Second of all... well, I just don't know if I am the marrying type.
I know I didn't ALWAYS feel this way. I know I grew up believing that by age 22 I would be married and rearin' babies with a rhythmic pride. I know that I've been with at least two people who I thought for SURE I would end up married to, happily rubbing my pregnant belly while cooking our nightly dinner. **shudder at the thought**
(HUYooHuhhhYaBlech!)
Sorry... even talking about it makes me projectile vomit all over pictures of storks and little pink and blue packages.
It's not that I don't believe in MARRIAGE or having KIDS... it's just that either prospect feels as foreign to me as taping a carrot to my hip and calling it a third leg. I know some people just aren't suited for eternal commitment, and I'm beginning to think that I may be one of them. It's taken me seven years to realize that I like being single, and now I can't even remember how I ever fit my life into someone else's. I might just be kooky enough that a relationship with myself is all that I can handle. At least it's nice to know that in a year-and-a-half of being on my own I honestly haven't gotten lonely. Okay, yes, I am scared of my bedroom because I think angry spirits visit me in my sleep there, but instead of aching for a male presence to protect me I choose to sleep determinedly on the couch and high-five myself cockily every morning. Totally normal and AWESOME!
I think marriage makes perfect sense for a lot of people, and I'm proud to say that my siblings are great examples of everlasting love and partnership with their significant others. However... I just don't see myself taking that same path. When I see wedding dresses in a magazine I flip the page. When people get married at the end of a romance novel I gag and write to the editor for a refund. I've never pictured myself in my ideal wedding dress holding a bouquet of flowers (although I did once see a rainbow dress with pom-poms that I mentally marked as a promising option).
It's not that I'm anti-love or anything. I'm actually a hopeless romantic at heart. I plan on living a life full of passionate loving relationships. I'll spend the rest of my twenties courting a vegan San Diegan with a ginger beard, and through my thirties I'll become a famous artist who runs a vegan food cart (Bex you're crucial here) and I'll date Bob Harper and any other super rad vegans who come my way. At age forty I'll adopt two children (not only will I be saving the world, but I'll be able to bypass the whole breast-feeding dealio that gives me the heebie-jeebies). One will be a girl named Yesterdae Eve and one a boy named Peppir (he'll have no choice but to be gay with a name like that). They'll excel in the arts and in business like young Royal Tenenbaums and together we'll rule the greater part of the world. At age forty-five I will dominate California's Cougar Club. I figure by then I'll have made it onto E's What Not to Wear and I'll be stunningly stylish and able to down a handle of Jack Daniels in a matter of minutes. (If you didn't know, this is a killer combo in the Cougar Scene.) When I'm fifty I'll grace the cover of People Magazine for their issue on "50 and Nifty" and I'll become highly involved with a forty-year-old Justin Bieber. He'll teach me to drive, and at age fifty-five I'll get my license and will officially be able to take over the world.
It's so nice to have a fail-proof plan.
All I have to do for now is blink rapidly (I can't wink) at Ginger Beards and work up my tolerance for $3 shots of Jack Daniels at the Saloon on Sunday nights.
Done. And. Done.
Those poor children...are you saving up enough money for their therapy?
ReplyDelete"So...tell me about your mother"
Yesterdae Eve lies down on the therapist's couch and stares up at the ceiling searching for the right combination of words to explain her years of turmoil.
"As a child growing up I can remember her waking up in the morning and brushing her teeth with a bottle of Jack. I thought that this was what people called tooth paste. We never had a car, even though she made millions of dollars being a famous artist, instead she forced us to walk everywhere. Family roadtrips were the worst."
"yeah...that's pretty effed up. Don't think therapy will help you! Better start drinking"
And so began Yesterdae Eve's long battle with alcoholism. For you see, as much as she tried she could never down a handle of jack daniels in a matter of minutes and would spend the rest of her life trying to in order to impress her mother. Sadly, by this time her mother had forgotten she even adopted children and was busy trying to adopt even more with a had-been celebrity by the name of Justin Bieber.
Flip the "white female" for "half-breed male" and you just wrote (nearly word for word) a pretty decent little synopsis of my life.
ReplyDeleteWhen you said 40-year-old Justin Bieber, why did Bruce Jenner come to mind?
ReplyDeleteAlso, just want to point out that "Yesterdae Eve" and "Peppir" are perfectly fine names for cats too! Spare the children! Name them things on the top 10 list instead;)!
Oh and also, love that your co-worker thought she outed your self-pity party... ;)
Your adulthood plan is perfection. I totally agree marriage isn't for everyone, and there is nothing wrong with not wanting to get married. I feel like marriage is seen as thing you are "supposed to do" when you are in love (to a lot of people), and not even about the actual commitment.
ReplyDeleteI salute you!