In exactly four months I'm going to turn 25. Ok. No big deal so far. I mean, it's the quarter-life birthday and I'll officially be in my mid-twenties, but it's not exactly a big deal. And in New York City, it's certainly no big deal to turn 25. It's no big deal to turn any age here, really.
But I'm Brazilian and I'm a woman. And I'm single. Very single. So single I haven't shaved anything in over a month. (I know- TMI- but I have a point here). And that thing is starting to happen- that thing that all women loathe, that thing that makes us avoid family gatherings and picking up the phone altogether- that thing is: people are starting to ask the questions.
Actually, let me be really specific. People are starting to replace the questions. "How are you?" is now "Why don't you have a serious-boyfriend-soon-to-be-fiance?", and "How's your career going?" is now "When are you going to produce off-spring?"
Being happy, single, and in pursuit of professional success is about to stop being charming. I mean, it's all good, but you know, I should be dating someone. I should be moving in with someone soon. I should be showing someone that I'm very good wife-material so that he'll propose and we'll have a wedding so that everyone can know that he married me before doing the absolutely most important thing in this whole ordeal: impregnating me before I turn thirty.
Yes, even in the year 2010, even after women have fought for centuries for their right to be seen as more than just baby-makers, that is still what is expected. And even though everyone knows I'm a feminist, even though everyone knows I have a passion that drives my life, even though I am not even twenty-fucking-five, that is still what is expected of me.
They may have even stopped saying it as much, they may have made TV shows and movies around the world about women who are over 30 and still single and possibly even happy about that, but things haven't really changed. Yes, it is theoretically and practically "Ok" now if you're a woman over 30 and single and childless and doing things that are still completely about you. But when a woman gets married and has babies before she turns 30, she suddenly feels like she belongs in society. Society looks at her approvingly, people treat her differently, there's a certain relief: one more woman in the world has fulfilled her duty. It doesn't matter if she ends up divorced and her children end up fucked up because their mother was unhappy- she still made it, she crossed the finish line.
So when we turn 25 we have a choice. We can give in to our need to belong (and we all have that need, there's no use pretending we don't), and look for a reliable responsible mate with whom we can get married to and have children with in the next five years.
Or we can say fuck fitting in to the conventional mold, fuck society's expectations, fuck my family's questions, fuck it all, I CHOOSE ME. It sounds empowering. It sounds kind of wonderful for someone like me, who wants to live life exactly as I wish to and never because I'm supposed to do anything. I don't really see the appeal of a five-year-plan being: marriage and kids. I want my five-year-plan to look something like: get a lot of acting work, learn another language, travel to at least five places I've never been to, throw dinner parties for my friends, write more, read a hundred new books, look into getting a doctorate, start a book club, do more yoga, meditate daily, flirt with more strangers, learn more about wine, draw, paint, and dance every week.
But there's a little problem with the equation: I care about what my family wants for me. I want to have kids, and I want my parents to be able to watch them grow up. I don't want to give my mother a heart attack by getting pregnant out of wedlock. I would actually much rather answer, "Yes, I'm madly in love and in a relationship with someone I'd like to have kids with one day" than "No, I don't have a boyfriend and I'm ok with that right now." The latter statement is not false, but I can't pretend I don't want to able to say the former someday, and maybe even someday soon.
As the infamous tv show "Sex and the City" showed people around the world: It is fabulous to be a glamourous single woman over 30, until it's not and all you want is a man to settle down with. In the end of the show, all those gorgeous, smart, funny, financially successful, sexually free and happy women had settled down with a man, and were happy to do so. And I actually think that was somewhat realistic. In the end, we don't want to go to nightclubs and hip restaurants every weekend with our single girlfriends for the rest of our lives. We can still do that, of course, but isn't it nice to also have the option of staying home with your significant other, or going to the restaurant you always go to with them, or even going to that new nightclub with them? If we're single, we don't have that option. We can stay home alone, we can go out to eat alone, we can go to museums alone, and all of that can be great too, but we have one less option in our lives, and that is the option of sharing our lives with someone we love. And, in my opinion, it happens to be one of the most delicious options in the world.
So, society's pressure + wanting to make my family happy + desire to find someone to love and share my life with = planning to get married and have kids within five years. But wanting to live my life without ties + pursuing my dreams + enjoying my life alone = planning to not be getting married or having kids anytime soon.
It reminds me of when I learned in math class that 1/2 + 1/2 = 2/4, which was simplified to = 1/2. It seems I have to choose either one whole equation or the other, because if I try to take half of one and half of the other I won't end up with a whole. I can't get married and be single, I can't have kids and not have kids, I can't be with someone and be alone at the same time.
A very problematic set of equations, I would say.
Problematic because, well, I simultaneously want it all and am not sure I want any of it. Sounds like a Quarter-Life-Crisis, doesn't it?
What I know is that I'm going to turn 25, I'm going to have to deal with social expectations, with questions I don't want to answer, and with my own uncertainty regarding my future. This will never stop. On the heels of my 30th birthday or my 60th birthday I will be dealing with doubts and pressures as well, I'm sure. I know that I am affected by these things but I am aware that thinking about them ultimately changes or influences nothing. I can't know what's going to happen or if making a decision about what I want would even matter. All I can really do, it seems, is ease my way into the unknown and, like most 25-year-olds, hope that life will figure it out for me.
