Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Why must I conform?

I told a group of people last night that I wanted to travel the world and get too many degrees. It may not be the most practical plan, but I was entirely serious. They took me seriously all for a moment, and then most laughed and said variations of this sentence: "well only until that special someone comes along, then it's all marriage and babies".

Hm, why is that always the answer in a girls life? If I want to have the aspirations to not get married and have babies, why is that considered odd, and something to be laughed at?

Now I'm sure the people who made these remarks did not mean them in a mean-spirited way, but I was slightly confounded for a moment. I'm not saying I'm trying to close my life off from what God has in store for me (please don't misinterpret it to mean that!) I'm merely saying, at this point in my life, I think God wants me to travel and study. I don't think I should be viewing my life plans through the filter of "eventually" getting married and having lots of babies. Right now I'm not looking for that special someone, I'm looking for what God's plan for me is, and right now, I think that plan has nothing to do with a special someone. Or babies. Because one assumes one requires the other.

What if: there is no special someone? Then I make all of my life plans based on the idea of eventually settling down only to be bitter and disappointed at a later date? What if: there is a special someone, but there's no babies? What if we spend the rest of our lives together traveling and working and having adventures? Why is there this idea of one path? We all think that way, the American Dream a mythical ideal is alive and well it would appear.

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