I remember hearing many, many, many people tell me that I shouldn't be in such a hurry to grow up. When I wanted to start shaving my legs, my mom told me not to rush things because "once you start, you can't stop!". Too true ~ about many things! I wanted to start wearing a bra in 4th grade, I think. I didn't have anything "bra worthy" until well into 6th grade. But my best friend had a full sized rack at age 10 (which she hated by the way) and I wanted to be just like her. I took college credit classes in high school because I loved the idea of getting through college in 3 1/2 years. A couple months after I turned 21, when the highlight of my life "should" have been staying out until all hours and hitting bar after bar, I bought a house with Adam. I was married at 22, had my first child at 24, and now at 26, I realize that I'm almost "done" with my life.
My goals were:
Go to college ~ check
Get married ~ check
Buy a house ~ check (twice)
Have kids ~ check (one and a half)
Okay, so I want to do more with my life, but those were the big ones.
Even motherhood seems to be something that I rushed through. When Alyssa was 7 months old, we "upgraded" to the mommy-mobile. When Alyssa turned 1, I stopped taking the pill and we started "not-not" trying to get pregnant again.
Why the rush? Why do I have to have everything done RIGHT NOW? I've started realizing lately that part of me wishes that I would have taken my time with things. I'm still glad that I finished college in 3 1/2 years, but part of that is that I'm glad that I saved my parents a semester's worth of private college tuition money and part of it was that I had a 45 minute commute my senior year each way. But now that I'm older, 22 seems like SOOO young to get married. And as much as I love Alyssa and being a mommy, I don't know why I felt like we had to have kids so soon. I could have waited until my later 20s. But then there's the whole "I want to be a young mom" thing. And I certainly didn't HAVE to have the mommy-mobile, as nice as it is to have sometimes. I miss my grand am! I miss not having a car payment!
Basically, in a nutshell I never thought of people being in a hurry to get through the major life changing moments of adulthood, but now that I think about it, I think I have on some level. I hope that doesn't come back to bite me in the arse. I'm afraid of having a midlife crisis at 28. :P
3 comments:
Just think of how young you'll be when your grandkids come along. There's something you can't rush! ;)
Good point, Alex!
And Adam told me tonight that I still have retirement to look forward to. Although I don't know if I really get "retirement" as a SAHM. ;)
I wanted kids young, too (I had Alex when I was 24)...I never *planned* on rushing things, but I did, anyway. I'm glad I did, though; I knew that if I wanted kids, I preferred to have them before I was 30...partially because I want to go back to get my Ph.D., and I didn't want to wait until *after* I had it to start my family.
Don't look at it as rushing things...look at it as being more mature. And now that you have those major goals accomplished- make new goals! You have so much time, and now you can do *more*!
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