Something interesting to write about... Why not...?
So, I have been beating myself up a little bit lately because I have been operating on a bit of a crazy, fast-paced agenda, where acquiring a home (and in our case, two apartments), the dog, the picket fence (oh yeah, but mine's gonna be black), and the stable, loving partner, a couple of kids, as well as trying to build a career and dreaming about fitting some travel in there all take priority on some high level in my life. I started to wonder if I was rushing things, while I look around me at women my age (though honestly I don't know many my exact age, but a range from low 20's up to early 30's) and I realize that most of them have been taking a very different approach to their lives than I have... I have friends who have forgone the career/home/partner/family route altogether for a while, and have been focussing on seeing a bit of the world, whether that be overseas somewhere, or even just taking a job that requires lots of traveling around. I have friends who have invested time and money into extensive educations (and even now are returning to add on to their degrees), these friends who are content with living in a one-bedroom apartment, partying at bars on the weekend, and seemingly, their greatest worry is what they'll wear out on Saturday evening. They seem (but maybe I'm just not as observant as I think), to not really have any worries about children in the near future, and figure once they meet 'the man', everything will fall into place (and maybe it will). I also have friends who have opted for the family route, earlier than later, in order to enjoy having children while they're young enough to play along with them. These women have opted for a smaller, simpler life perhaps, but they make ends meet, and a few I know are married and living happily with their spouses (and adding on children), and a few are living the single-mom life and seem quite successful at it (though I'm sure it's not easy at all).
So where the hell do I fit in? Why can't I make up my mind on what I want? I have no idea. I always wanted to get married. And, in some small way, I always wanted children. By age 18, when I went off to University, it started to eat away at me that all I wanted in the whole wide world was a baby. I know now that I really was looking for a 'companion' in life, and since have (thankfully) adopted two cats, a turtle (who didn't remain with me) and a dog (that I'm freaking about), who provide me with more than enough ways to exercise my 'mothering' instincts. Over the next 7 years, I have gone to college, opting for the quicker, more direct route to a job, over the more expensive and less goal-oriented (for me) option of University. I don't have any regrets that I dropped out when I did, but now I sometimes wonder if perhaps I have potential to be or do more and am limiting myself by not having that piece of $50,000 paper that says 'she's a smart cookie' from the University of Ottawa or wherever. Then I started on a career path, that proved to be a bit more difficult (trying to get into the gov't) and ultimately landed me in a consulting role, where I've been working to defy the hugely stacked odds against me (I'm young, inexperienced, female, and without a degree - some view that as a pretty bad list of things to be up against). Within that career, I've struggled with trying to find out what I really, truly, would be happy doing. I find I'm bored now in what I'm currently working on, and I do need a change, but I'm unsure about the direction I should go in. I have found I don't have a lot of patience for working with other people, I like to get things done efficiently and effectively, and don't handle a lot of wishy-washy social crap in between (in other words I've found I really don't enjoy working with most women...) I've entertained ideas of writing, but don't think I'd do the whole news and gossip thing well, and where I used to think I'd enjoy social sciences or psychology, I've since found that they don't cater to my results-driven side that I find the computer science field really feeds.
Then, I've always had this nagging feeling that I've wanted to travel, though interestingly enough, when we took a trip down South one year, after about four days, I was ready to go home. And I struggle with trying to figure out if life in the city, with its cappuccinos, flashy lights, nice houses and 'things to do' is better suited to my tastes than the allure of a quiet, simpler life in the country, with a sprawling old house with a big veranda overlooking beautiful gardens and rolling hills. And where, in all that, do I fit the kids? Do I even want kids? Yes, sometimes I think 'oh, wouldn't that be cute to dress the baby up and take him/her to the zoo'. Then I see some poor, distant mother, dragging her screaming kid(s) through the store or on the bus, while people (myself included) shoot dagger stares at her and wish she'd do something to make the kid be quiet. Even the financial aspect of raising a child scares me. To give up my career (and in the computer world, as a woman, if you have kids, you better be employed by the government, or bye bye career) and stay home with the kids would probably drive me insane. I don't really like children (especially once they get older and spoiled), I need time to myself, I am not a good house-keeper... There is the option that hubby could stay home, which might make more sense financially, but I'm not sure that this idea is based in reality for the majority of us out there.
Anyway, all this to say, it was just a thought I was mulling over on my walk at lunch. Then I came back and found this article http://www.srmjournal.org/article/PIIS1546250104000052/fulltext that talks about how most of the women you see at the top of the corporate ladder (including my boss) don't have children, as it is extremely difficult for women to battle the demands of getting an education, landing in debt, finding a career, finding a husband, having a baby, taking time off work, regaining the career, and raising children while climbing the corporate ladder (and traveling the world? :) ) all at the same time. It has an interesting checklist at the bottom that, to me, is worth keeping as one of those things you look back on in 50 years and giggle about how ludacrous it seems (reminds me of those Suzie Homemaker articles from the 40's in terms of how it provides such a definite 'checklist' of things you MUST do in order to be happy). So I don't know if I'm on the right track or not, or even which track I'm on, but at least I know I'm not alone in trying to get everything sorted out early so I can have my family (if family is what I'm destined to have), or my 'winter home' in some tropical place, or whatever. ;)
In the mean time I'm attempting to NOT step on my other-half's toes, while attempting to figure out what is best for both of us, and this is a difficult thing when so many aspects are up in the air.. Food for thought anyway...