i’m so done with the way girls in twenties are treated. i’m so done with people who literally create timetable for us. 20- 24 find a guy, 24-26 make him propose to you, 27-29 get married. i’m so done. i’m do not want to get 2 a.m texts from my best friend who is freaking out that she is gonna die alone. i do not want see my 20 years old friend wasting her time on some guys who are not even interested in her. i do not want see us falling for every nice guy who does not look creepy. i do not want to see girls get sad or paranoid just bcos they do not fill in the schedule. you are ok. you should enjoy your life at its fullest and one day you will find 10/10 so do not pursue 6 just because you do not want to be single. it is ok and one day you will find someone. do not split your love with people who does not deserve it. keep it for yourself and when time will come you will know. i know it hurts. i know you wish u could just open part of yourself and release the buzzing love. but not every kind of love is romantic. show it to your family, friends, plants, yourself.
Not a real criticism, just an expansion really, but … it’s not just the timetables we need to get away from, but the goal itself, I think. “One day you will find someone,” sounds comforting, but the reason it doesn’t lay fears to rest is because we are all smart enough to know it’s not necessarily true.
My aunt is over sixty, never married, and never, so far as I am aware, ever even had a great romance. She dated a lot, but never clicked and now seems to have given up. My mentor is over seventy, divorced her asshole husband more than half her life ago and has never found anyone since.
We all know women (and men) like these. And because we know them, we know that “one day you will find someone,” is just … hogwash. Because sometimes you just … don’t. Or sometimes you do, but he turns out to be a cad. Or you do and the universe rips you apart in the most unfair way possible. And because society has us so fixated on finding “our other half” or whatever, we view these women as cautionary tales.
But …
My aunt trains dogs. Her schipperke is the national champion for his breed. She spent so much of her life as a librarian, nurturing the love of books in kids, myself among them. I ride horses because of her, and it’s one of the very few things I do that makes my soul feel at peace.
My mentor is one of the best criminal defense attorneys in her state. She has devoted her life to fighting to ensure that everyone gets a vigorous defense. Because of her countless people have had the opportunity to turn their lives around. Because of her, they’ve had a life to turn around. Because of her, the prosecution and the police in her jurisdiction are forced to behave ethically and adhere to the rule of law. She’s still, even now fighting to abolish the death penalty. It’s because of her that I am pursuing the life I am.
These women’s lives are not nothing. In fact they are a whole lot of something, and it makes my heart hurt that I ever, in my dark 3 am’s, thought of their lives as something to be avoided at all costs.
So love your family, your friends, your pets, your gardens. Love your job or your hobby or your raison d’ etre, whatever it is. Love sunsets and the smell of rain and yourself, and don’t love these as something to do as a placeholder until the buzzing, romantic love comes, but love these as things worth loving all in themselves.
It’s fucking hard some days. The dark 3 am’s still come sometimes. But most days, I am so much more at peace knowing that I am not incomplete or waiting, but that my life, if it ended today, is worth it because of the platonic, familial, friendship love I have shared. And if the other kind does come someday, that’ll be nice, but it won’t make any of the others less. It’ll just be caramel sauce on a sundae–tasty and wonderful, but the sundae was perfect without it too.
I needed this today.
