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Settle down, your life is over.

I find that I’m unusually contented with my lot lately. It’s not rare for me to go through periods of contentment where I am happy to go through my day doing my work, and living my quiet life. But underneath that contentment there’s always a fire, a perennial longing to do today all the things I want someday. I’ve learned to be wary of ‘someday’. The more one says ‘someday’, the more it stays there.

But lately, I’ve lost that a little. I don’t say it like it’s a bad thing either; perhaps my burning need for success and change (in that order) needs rekindling. Perhaps it needs, like almost everything else, to recharge. Lately, as I said, I’m just content.

I still have a horror sometimes of being married (although for the most part I think it still sounds like a good idea). It feels like the most enormous decision that one will ever make, and it’s forever (I’m old-fashioned enough to still believe that it’s forever). I have come close to making some horrendous mistakes with men in the past, and although I’m dating again now, nobody’s come close to touching my heart.

A friend (who insists he will never marry) teased me about this; he said he thought I was like him in the sense that I wanted to see the world and do other things with my life, and keep having adventures. I confess that it surprised me. Of all the reasons to not get married, this does not seem like a rational or a logical reason to me. Why is it that there is a sense of marriage being the end of one’s life? Why does parenthood get held up as some sort of life-stopping event? Of course marriage and parenthood are permanent, and I’m not disputing that for a second, but surely they are, in their own way, an adventure too? I’ve always looked upon them as such; I know that neither state will change my life in any way or stop me from having adventures. Destinations are sweeter with a companion to warm one’s bed, and children should never stop one from continuing to travel and to live. In fact, children should see a changing world. I have always firmly believed that.

Why say ‘No, thank you’ to something that I think is an amazingly wonderful adventure? I know that when the time is right I will say ‘Yes’, and not ‘No’.

2 Comments

  • Strangebee 16th May 2012 at 7:33 pm

    Having kids doesn’t require you to stop adventuring. You just have to modify how you go about said adventure. You can’t just spontaneously grab a backpack of clothes and go anymore. It does need a bit more planning to it, a little more money, and a lot more gear to take with. Haha.
    It is also very true that marriage and children are an adventure in their own ways. My husband and I are in our twelfth (I think? It’s been so long we’ve lost track, haha.) year of our relationship, our five year marriage anniversary is coming up this year, and our son will be two. The basis of our relationship, friendship and mutual attraction, hasn’t changed at all but everything else has grown in so many different ways. We’ve both changed from how we were when we first met. Our goals in life had changed. Now with the addition of a child it’s all changed again. I wonder if evolved would be a better word. Anyways, I think I’m just trying to say our relationship is something that is a constant work in progress. 🙂

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  • Linda Maloly 17th May 2012 at 2:43 am

    Loved this one, Awanthi 🙂 We all go through periods of time where we are content (even unusually so). In my case it’s been my way of relaxing for a bit before moving to another stage in my life. However, I can promise you that both marriage and parenthood will change your life. Our lives constantly evolve and, in most cases, marriage and parenthood are part of that evolution. Neither has to put a stop to adventures though. In the case of marriage there is just another person to consider and with a child or children even more considerations are involved.
    Never give up on your adventures! Just tweak things so that they continue for the rest of your life! You, your partner, and your children will all be much better and richer because of those adventures…no matter how large or small.

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