Thanks for all the birthday wishes last week. I'm 29. I'm getting to that age. I'm not 30 yet, but I've nestled up as close as one can get without actually *touching* it. So I'm young, technically, but it feels like I've been condemned to Auntie status for a long time.
Whether she intends it or not, every phone conversation with my mother, who I love with all my heart, is starting to sound the same to me: "I saw in the paper that so-and-so from your high school who you weren't really friends with and never spoke to again is getting married." "My friend's daughter just bought a house." "My other friend's daughter just had her third baby." There's never an explicit reproach, but the undertone is there: what have you done for me lately?
So here's what I've done lately: I've gotten a degree in English that, while fun, wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. I've halfheartedly been to law school because I didn't know what else to do. I've jetted abroad to do a Master's degree, then jetted home to be called even more halfheartedly to the Bar. I've risen through the ranks of junior lawyers, been head hunted, and jetted off again to Europe to work in the Big City as a corporate drone. I've seen the world, several times, and had my share of boys and men. And yet, my dear friends (the ones who are married and are maybe onto their second house and their third baby) still say things like, "Just come home so you can start your life!"
Huh?
Because here's what I haven't done lately: bought a house, found the One, married the One, and had babies with the One. Even my younger brother has managed to mollify the Momma by living in sin with his partner of seven years, a convenient 10 minute drive from the Parents' house.
Do I want these things?
Next question.
Do I have the foggiest idea how to get there?
Nope.
Do I even know if I'd be happy if, by some strange Freaky Friday occurrence, I found myself tomorrow in my friends' shoes, in yoga pants, my hair thrown back in a ponytail, pushing my kids down a suburban street in a Quinny stroller?
Nope.
Do I feel like time is running out and I'd better make up my mind, fast?
You betcha.
I love kids. I love being an Auntie. But, I also love giving them back. And, I also heave a sigh of relief whenever I drive out of suburbia and back into the city after a long day of Auntie-ing. However, I do still have the same white picket fence, white wedding dress (okay, off-white wedding dress), pink-and-blue bootie fantasies (not necessarily in that order) that I think most girls still have, but feel ashamed to admit...thanks, feminism! So yes, I guess I want it all. I want the Dream, but I want to still be Me so the Dream doesn't become the Nightmare.
What I don't want is to always feel like an also-ran at family gatherings when I don't have a ring or a kid to show off or a mortgage rate to brag about. What I don't want is to feel that unless these things happen for me, I'm not a whole person. There's got to be a way to find love and fabulousness without compromising, isn't there? I can feel good about who I am even if I don't tick all these boxes, can't I?
My head says yes, but my heart doesn't always agree. When we go on family holidays and I'm relegated to the pull-out sofa, the spinster sister, I can't help but feel like less of a person. And I don't want to feel that way anymore.
So. I'm off in search of fabulousness, the Black Sheep of the family. The one who tore herself away from a very close family unit to forge her own path in the world, and found she quite liked it out there. And the one who currently feels the most pressure to Settle Down. And, sadly, the one that, despite living a rich and probably interesting life, feels a little bit discounted and discarded by the world because I'm not living that life as Mrs. or Mommy.
And so, hopefully 29 will be a fantastic year, my year to hopefully show someone that it's okay, maybe even fun, maybe even a little exciting, to be the Spinster Sister, the Auntie. Even if that someone is just myself.