The afternoon sun is quickly waning as I sit on my chaise with my puppy curled up on my lap and a hot mug of tea beside me. English breakfast tea. I used to prefer tea over coffee until my last job where too-easily-accessible free coffee made the 3:00 fatigue a little more tolerable. But tea has always warmed me in a way that coffee could never do.
As I balance my laptop between a TV table and my right knee, and reach over Elouise’s head to type (by the way, she’s snoring), I feel her little feet moving. She’s dreaming. I wonder if she’s chasing her cousin Daisy, or if she’s chasing me and playfully nipping at my winter boots, which she loves to do. Like any new mommy, I have been rapidly Googling what to expect from each stage of puppyhood. Like, the biting. When will it end?!! Google tells me that by 15 weeks, she should stop biting people. She’s 9 weeks old today, so we have about 6 weeks left to go. (Which, if you’ve ever waited for your puppy to outgrow the stage where they treat you like a chew toy, then you know how slow these days go.) Google tells me puppies should be housebroken by 4-6 months. At 9 weeks old, Elouise is well on her way to being housebroken. She’s already crying at the door when she needs to go out.
The point of this story is that there are timelines for everything: when babies should talk, when puppies will be housebroken, when we should have children and when we should go to college. In fact, if you google, “What age should people get married?” you’ll see that “experts” say that you should get married between the ages of 28 and 32 to avoid the greatest chances of divorce. I even read that people who live alone are 40% more likely to develop dementia than those who are married. Talk about an urgent timeline! Heck, it’s bad enough that I am unmarried, but now my health is at risk because I’m single?! Oy vey!
At 36 years old, I spent probably 35 years of it closely monitoring the timeline of my life. I was supposed to meet my future husband in college, then marry him by 25. I was going to have my first child by 27, and be done having children by 32 before my eggs started to shrivel up. But none of that happened.
At 25, I wasn’t getting married; I was living in a little apartment one block from the beach on Cape Cod, teaching high school English during the day, and walking along the beach every afternoon. At 27, I was flying to Spain with my best friend where we learned to salsa from a couple of Barcelona natives, then caught the eye of a flamenco dancer who bought us what we think were bull testicles for dinner. At 28, I thought I was changing the world by helping inmates earn their G.E.D., and at 29, I bought my first house. By myself. And then I proceeded to renovate the entire house, watch the sun rise over Stonehenge, land a new job and a promotion soon after, become President of a local non-profit organization, and… start a successful blog. At 36, sweet little Elouise entered my home and my heart, and that house that was “mine” is now “ours.” The actual timeline of my life is one that the five-year-old girl caught on her grandfather’s video camera saying that she is going to get married and have babies, could never have imagined. Not even that little girl with a vivid imagination could have dreamed up the actual timeline of my life.
Yes, I have eggs that are probably shriveling up as I type this, and I do realize that if I want to have biological children, I do have to adhere to a biological timeline that I can’t change. But how many people have quickly settled into a relationship or marriage with someone simply because they thought they needed to adhere to a timeline? I met someone at 34 years old and we dated for over a year, but guess what? I knew from the beginning of that relationship that he wasn’t “the one,” and though I tried to convince myself that he was because the thought of starting over sickened me, my gut kept trying to smack some sense into me. Why did I try to convince myself? Because I was adhering to an imaginary timeline.
If you want a child, then you can have one without a partner. I know plenty of women who experienced childbirth through artificial insemination, and others who have fostered and adopted children. I can tell you that I have not done either, but I have considered artificial insemination. There are Facebook support groups for single moms by choice (as they are called), and several bloggers who write about their experiences as a single mom by choice. These women have thrown away the timeline that society gives us and said, “Screw it, I’m going after what I want when I want it.” They don’t rely on a man to help them fulfill their dreams or goals. I know that being a single mom is very difficult. There is no one to share the night feedings, or hold the baby while you shower, cook dinner, or eat, for that matter. I’m going through the same thing now with this pup, but of course it’s on a different level than raising a human child. (Cold eggs for breakfast are now a treat.) It’s difficult, but I have to imagine that the experience makes you stronger. I mean, can you imagine looking into the eyes of the rest of the world and saying, “I did this all on my own?” That’s a red high heel moment. (If you don’t know what that is, you should read my blog post titled “Legend of the Red High Heels.”) There is something so beautiful about a woman who lives deeply, and as Thoreau says, “sucks(s) out all the marrow of life.”
Our lives should be a series of decisions we make, rather than left to the fate of an imaginary timeline. You decide when you want to buy a home and then set up a savings plan to make it happen. And when the hot water heater breaks and you are faced with cold showers, you don’t need a man to fix it; you just need a trustworthy plumber on speed dial. You decide where you are going to live and if you want to take that job in Texas because you are sick of New England winters. You decide when you will finish your college education, and just because “everyone else” finishes their Bachelors degree in four years, you get to decide if it will take you five or six years because you want to pursue a side gig while you’re in college. If you have already raised your children and think that your time has passed to get your college degree, you are gravely mistaken, my friend. YOU get to decide when you will go back to school. There is no age limit on education. My brother went back to college when he was 26 years old. He craved the typical college experience of living in the dorms but thought his time had passed. Through his own determination to have this experience, he found a dorm for “mature” students and ended up meeting lifelong friends AND his future wife.
If there is one regret I have, it’s the amount of time and energy I wasted in my 20s wondering when it would be my time. My time to find Mr. Right, my time to get married after going solo to all my friends’ weddings, my time for a baby shower after spoiling all my friends’ babies at theirs. I wish I had realized that my time was right then. It was my time to travel the world. My time to take those girls trips. My time to buy a house before any of my friends did. My time to live on the beach. My time to focus on my education and career. My time to go on three dates in one day and then tell my roommate about how I rushed to get to each date on time. My time to spend every Friday night dancing the night away in Boston bars with a group of friends that found each other on the dance floor every time the DJ played “Dynamite” by Taio Cruz. It was my time to spend my days however I wanted, without the responsibility of caring for a little one. It was my time to study in Scotland, meet lifelong friends, then travel back for their weddings.
I am now more than half-way through my 30s. I ripped up the timeline that imprisoned my thoughts in my 20s and placed it in the shredder, because I’m on my time now. It is my time to binge on sushi and Neflix after a long day, buy Starbucks or a new pair of heels whenever I want, and decorate my house however I damn well please. (I once dated a man who criticized my decor. He had to go.) It is my time to stand face-to-face with a wild gorilla in Rwanda, spend a Sunday Funday walking a 10-mile rail trail with the girls, and finally publish that book that I spent all of my 20s dreaming about. It’s my time to focus on me: my health, my dreams, and my happiness.
It’s your time, too.
What is it time for? Is it your time to change careers to something you love, even though you’ve been told you’ll have to once again start at the bottom? Maybe it’s your time to foster a child you will end up falling in love with and then spending several hours in a courtroom fighting to adopt him, and you will win. Maybe it’s your time to defy the odds and climb Mt. Everest, stare in awe at an African sunset, or take that service trip to Guatemala that you always wanted to do. (Post Covid, please!) Perhaps, it’s time to forgive yourself for wasting so much time worrying about adhering to some ridiculous timeline. While you are worrying about your eggs drying up and thinking up excuses to get out of Zoom happy hour tonight, someone else is envying your freedom and would do anything for a happy hour with friends.
Ms. Independent, have courage to throw away the timeline that was prescribed to you, and start living your own life on your own time. Want to have a baby? Join a support group and talk to women who choose to raise children on their own. Want to buy a house but afraid that if you buy it and then meet the man of your dreams, you may have to sell it when you move in together? Buy it anyway. Make sure you buy a house in a good school district with resale value, and you’ll be fine. Throw yourself a housewarming party, graduation party, birthday party, promotion party, or even a party to celebrate finishing your first 5K. Don’t let Covid stop you; throw a virtual party. If 2020 proved anything, it’s that life can change in an instant. Do all the things now while you can, and don’t wait for the right time, or the right opportunity, or the right person. Stop waiting, and live.
Ms. Independent, take your time. Don’t let someone else take it.
With love,
C
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