I was just taking a shower and thinking. You probably guess it already, yes, this is the reason why I decided to blog my thoughts.
Shower seems to always steam out all the thoughts out of my head. For some odd reason every time I step my foot into my little "oasis", I begin to think.
People sometimes ask me about my past relationship and subject of me being married comes up. And then they ask how long I been married. And the answer is always "ten years", though sometimes I lie a little and say nine. Nine always seem to sound so much less then ten, odd isn't?
And as I "admit" to the true length of my marriage, people "ah" and "oh" and blink at me with an odd stare fallowed by "But you are so young".
Yes, I am thirty years old and I been married since 1997, I separated with my ex in 2007.
If you did your math correctly, I was 18 years old when I got married (I'm a December baby and our wedding was in November).
At this point the "oh" and "ah" change into simple open-jaw-expression.
Then, the next question usually is "do you have any kids?". And my answer is short - "no".
This made me think about how people attach everything to numbers.
How long I was married would suggest I have kids. Being married at 18 could mean god-knows what. Number, number, number.
Because ten years sound like so much time, why do people automatically think that with number there is "more" to the story?
Numbers always hunt us. My mother asks me sometimes if I will have kids... because after all I am thirty. Oh my god, thirty. It doesn't matter that I am single, nor am I in love, nor I even have anyone in my life to call "my man". But what is important is the number - 30 -. Why?
We go though our life and we work everything around numbers. Our job around $$$-numbers, our social life around number of friends, our daily steps around number of water-glasses consumed.
A girl I know got married not to long ago, it's been just couple of years, but she already is being asked about number of kids. And the fact that she is not ready doesn't matter to society, because after all two years of marriage are perfect for making a nest.
What means a month of knowing somebody very well and twenty years of not knowing your own lover? Why do we admire the number of commitment instead of the true being ourselves, and doing what feels right, WHEN feels right?
Life is a strange place, but life doesn't give us second chances. If you live it and assign numbers to it, you will cage yourself in what seems to be an ideal plan, but at the end of the day you may die at 90, maybe 75. Will you ask yourself then if this is the right number to die? Did you live all those years without fear of loosing a day or a month or perhaps a year for doing something for yourself? No matter how silly or big it is? Will you ask yourself if years spend at what you been working for were worth it? Did you worked for it long enough? Did you smile the right amount of times? Did you cry enough, did you made love and wished for time to stop?
Or will you worry that when you were 12-years old you should have taken dance classes, or the bike ride with that one boy, maybe walk away from the woman who cheated on you but you didn't wanted for everyone to see that sometimes things simply don't work out?
Don't say you want time for yourself, just say that you are not ready. Why do you have to be?
Don't cry about lost years, if they are in your pass; Why not be happy with who you are because of those years?
Don't put all those numbers into jars of "anniversaries" and "celebrations of years of commitment". Put them into your pocket and smile, because you made your life your way, slow or fast, sloppy with mistakes, or flawless and full of laughters or tears - you took each step not because you had to meat the "deadline" but because it made your heart skip the beat and worth living.
