Babies and all that jazz

Y'A

I don't know what letter the media assigned to my generation, but I consider people "my age" to be between 30-40. My circle of friends is refreshingly progressive. There is only one married couple in the bunch. The rest of us are either single or serially monogamous, but never getting to the U-Haul stage. It's pretty awesome to have Sunday Funday without waiting on babysitters. Ahhh the good life. Imagine my utter shock when, upon arriving at MID-THIRTIES, some of us (mostly the men) are suddenly talking about settling down. I don't know where they are getting this from. It must be in a Playboy or Men's Health because it basically reads like a script. "You know, I'm getting close to 40 so I'm thinking about settling down. We are the same age. You know what I mean?" No actually I don't. I, unlike most women, don't consider age a precipitating factor in my decision to marry. I have always wanted to have kids and even my rapidly declining egg production is not pushing the issue. This all makes me feel weird. A Peter Pan of sorts. And why aren't my female friends going through the same biological clock bullshit? Talking to these guys makes me feel old.

Maybe these male friends of mine waited so long to be mature that it all rushes them at once. One of my best guy friends asked me if he should ask out a single mom we know. She will never say yes because he is the most immature person that I know. He recently got a dog and I have no issue admitting I'm concerned about the well-being of this dog. I wouldn't trust him with a plant. I tried to tell him the single mom is awesome yes, but her son is like 12 now. He is basically a lil man and old enough to call out bullshit. The real problem I have is his reasoning for wanting to date her. He said "at my age, I don't know if I will ever get married or have kids so I think she is the type of person I should be dating." What the fuck does that even mean? I don't know what's going on with people in their thirties having a midlife crisis, but I cannot sympathize. I still have money to waste and wine to drink before I start feeling lonely and settle down to have babies and all that jazz.

Jess

This mid-life crisis business is hitting my friends a bit early. One female, 27, has already been married, bought and sold a house, and gotten divorced. So I guess you could say her practical age is accelerated. Instead of stepping back and enjoying singlehood, she’s been on a mission to find Mr. Right 2.0 and decided literally two weeks ago that she’s tired of renting and is going to buy a house. She’s already put an offer in and will be devastated if it falls through. Her boyfriend of 6 months must be shitting himself by now, knowing the next step will be the invite to keep his personal affects in several drawers at her new home. Soon after, she’ll let him know there’s just no reason to leave anymore, why not bring the rest of his stuff and settle in for the long haul. Oddly enough, I haven’t heard the K word being whispered. I think she just feels that in her str8 and narrow world, this is what she should be doing right now at this point in her life.  Which leads me to the BFF.

Last we saw her, she was recently enGAGed and loving the word FIANCE. This has not changed, it has merely accelerated. The wedding is 2/3 planned and it isn’t until next summer. New furniture keeps mysteriously showing up in her rental home. All in anticipation of the FIANCE moving in ‘soon’. Mind you, he owns his own home that he will be giving up to undergrad renters hell bent on keg stands in order to placate her need to live in the city. So they need more storage space – hence the new china cabinet.  He will need a room of his own in which to do ‘guy’ things (read jerk off to geek porn) so the basement has been cleaned out and a new couch arrived promptly. It’s like someone else’s life blew through her house and suddenly she’s trying it on for size, testing out the waters of spending recklessly (his money) and rolling the words ‘US/WE’ around in her mouth, getting a feel for the union.

I hate to nit-pick (not really, it’s my favorite pastime), but to recap this epic romance – 1. They dated for a little over a year and fought for half of it. 2. They painfully broke up for 5 months. 3. Death of a beloved pet bred reconciliation and 7 months later – engaged. If anything in this life seems rushed, it’s this engagement. I wonder if women look in the mirror and at the first sight of a grey hair, run screaming into the arms of the first available bachelor, convinced it was kismet and begin the process that ends with 2.5 kids and a white picket fence.

Life flashes by in a millisecond and to feel that you are not in the right place within it, when really you are exactly where you should be, because you stand in this moment now, is unfortunately why these men and women are in the throes of a crisis. Rushing to the end of one’s life means only that you haven’t enjoyed the journey along the way.