Family Ties (Warning - May Get Cocky and -ahem- Biological)

Somebody tell me - convince me - that it is smart to go against years and years (centuries, really, millennia) of traditions, of family roles, of living, of doing what we're made to do so that women can be "equal" to men, and young couples who dream of getting married and living life together, having a family together, come across as total morons and should be readily shut down.

Go ahead, try to convince me.  I suppose I am, to a degree, an anti-feminist.  I'm fully aware that I am just as good as those members of society with penises, but obviously, I'm not one of them!  I was made to do something different.  Now, I'm nineteen years old, okay?  I'm not an aged, wizened old woman trying to reach the world and keep things from changing... I'm part woman, part kid who is trying to figure out what on earth is going on with this crappy world.  But I'm pretty sure that I wasn't made to deny my instincts, to turn away from what my heart obviously craves and desires, even needs.  Fifty years ago, if a young woman my age thought the way I do... well, she's be idolized by every older relative she had, and they'd be so proud of their mature young woman, off to marry and raise a family of her own, playing her role in society.  Today?  Not the case.  Today, everyone apparently knows better than to waste precious time on a spouse and children, everyone knows that the most important thing in life is to get a degree and work until you die, discovering "yourself" and denying that billions of children are being raised by daycares, or in two different households at the same time, never knowing where they'll be thrown next.

Everyone tells me I'm too young, I'm not mature enough.  Well, let me tell you something.  I'm not always mature, I can admit that easily.  But go spend an hour or two at the grocery store.  Observe people at a park.  I would put money on the fact that you'll find some mother screaming at her child because the child is misbehaving and perhaps the mother is feeling some immaturity and just can't handle it.  She could be forty years old.  You can go sit on a bench on a city street, you'll see adults flicking each other off when one idiotic city driver pulls out in front of another.  You'll see grown people walk past homeless people - the ones that, when you've lived around them long enough, you can tell are real and not just out for drug money - and you can watch a college student slip a bill or two to them, or even pull them up and buy them dinner.  Who is more mature, the investment banker who walked past the homeless man with a sneer on his face, or the college kid who picked him up and dusted him off?  Who is more mature, the Wall Street mother who leaves her kid alone to throw temper tantrums because they're alone and toys can only do so much, or the nanny who shows that kid what it's like to be loved?

Now, I'm not knocking people who have higher-up jobs, I'm just trying to make a point.  If you spend your life devoted to your money, to the way you think society wants you to be, you'll end up with a pile of anguish and regret.  I don't want that.  I will have regrets, I know that.  Because let me tell you something, it is impossible to live life without one single regret.  I have a ton already, at nineteen.  But falling in love and planning to spend the rest of my life with the most amazing person I have ever met is not one of them.  Going to college for a degree that might not come to fruition the way I expect, but that makes me happy and gives me a place to be me?  Definitely not a regret.  Trying to live my life the way I think it should be lived?  Not a regret.

I'm not saying I'm perfect.  Writing a blog about others' maturity levels... probably not my most mature moment.  But I can't shake the feeling that no matter what I do, I'm never going to measure up to society, and if this is what I'm being compared to... then I don't WANT to measure up.  I want to go about my life, doing my best to live what God's set out for me.  If that means getting married at 22... bring it, baby!  If that means I don't hit Broadway... well, yes, that will be a bitter pill to swallow, but I'll bet God will make it worthwhile if I let Him.  See, the thing is, everybody seems to think that one thing or another will make them happy, will keep them from ever being miserable again.  "If I make enough money," "If I get liposuction one more time," "If I put off having kids until AFTER I have a career...."

Stop criticizing me.  Stop telling me I'm making the wrong decisions.  I'm not doing drugs, I'm not drinking away my weekends like 3/4 of the college students that you (by some freaky twist of fate) are actually proud of.  I'm not spending my whole life striving for something I'll never reach, because I know that I can reach what I'm meant to.  Stop telling me I'm living my life wrong.  It's not that I'm living it "wrong," I'm just not living it your way.  But it isn't yours to live, end of story.  If it was, my name wouldn't be Jade.  It would be something else.

And you know what?  To all of my dear friends out there who have decided that climbing the corporate ladder isn't for you: good for you.  One of the sweetest, happiest, most God-like women that I know is a stay-at-home mom with four kids who couldn't be happier and more content.  And I strive to be like her.  I strive to be like my mom, who opened her shop to fulfill one of her dreams, and who still puts her kids first.  I strive to be like Madame, who goes absolutely crazy running around doing stuff for other people, who is always there when I need someone.

When I'm forty, fifty years old, I don't want to look back with regrets.  So guess what... I'm not going to sit here and deliberately create them for myself.  And if I slow down, if I wait, if I "get my education," "have my career first," I'm going to do just that, and I refuse.  Enjoy your life and your career.  I will love having my family and waking up every day excited to see where it might take me.