Let me take you to a place I know you want to go
It's a good life
Am I silly for falling into a structured life so easily? My recently married friend jokingly tells me I'm getting old, I'll lose steam, can't party like I use to. It's true I guess. I don't go to as many parties, I don't intoxicate myself with the same variety, and I have lost that giddy energy for the night. I own an apron now, I bake cookies for my dog children, I make a home with my partner, and I kiss him goodbye before I go off for my 40 hrs a week job.
I'm 25 and I'm worried about wrinkles. I'm only in my quarter life and I'm thinking about holding on to my youth despite adulthood. Thinking about what I can do to put more skills on my resume, what labor intensive dish I can make for a dinner party to display my culinary (ahem, domestic) skills. I'm scheduling time with my parents now for meals. When did this maturity dry it's wings from my college cocoon?
For the time being I'm working the off shift, which allows me to hit the parties after work. I just gotta wrap it up, change in the bathroom, and by 0100 I'm working my way towards a chemically induced neural firestorm. By the end of the night of busting my ass, I mostly want to just come home and decompress. Drink some wine (like an old lady) and wait for my man to ask "how was work" just so I can recant the highlights of my 8 hr shift.
Although I lived by a calender as a student, wrapped up in classes, research, extracurricular resume stacking, I didn't really schedule "fun". That sounds counter intuitive to what fun is to me: impulsive, untamed, loco. Well, we grown now so I spend my days going to bed early (for me which is 0200) and waking up to do yoga. Come home to clean and make lunch.
Adulthood is not as glamorous as I tricked myself into thinking. Sure, I can finally afford all those carrots I dangled for myself but it's unfulfilling without higher aims. I'm not ready for domestic servitude. I am happiest when it's nose to the grind working for something bigger than what women are prescribed. My womb does not ache, on the contrary, I'd sell my first born for half a dozen things.
I'm not going to let anyone drop a timeline on me. I'm not going to put getting married and having children ahead of contributing to the pool of scientific knowledge. Making spawn does not mean you've contributed, being a stay at home mom is not a real job. A real job is one that finds solutions for the children of the world and not just your own spoiled brats. Sorry mom, it's going to be a while before I squeeze one out just because "that's how things are".
