On the day of Simone de Beauvoir’s Birthday…

On the day when it will be possible for woman to love not in her weakness but in strength, not to escape herself but to find herself, not to abase herself but to assert herself – on that day love will become for her, as for man, a source of life and not of mortal danger. In the meantime, love represents in its most touching form the curse that lies heavily upon woman confined in the feminine universe, woman mutilated, insufficient unto herself.” — Simone de Beauvoir

I have been thinking a lot about marriage over the last little while. I’m now 28 (2 years to thirty) and my FB feed is full of engagements, pregnancies and the purchasing of puppies. I have discovered that although I am very attracted to the idea of marriage, and don’t really fear coming home to my life day after day the way I have crafted it, I do somewhat fear marriage. It’s hard to describe without feeling like I am somehow condemning my partner or my choices. It’s hardly a matter of anyone else, mostly about how I would feel in my own skin if I was to marry.

I know the Simone de Beauvoir was born and active as a feminist beginning many many years ago, and to borrow from her in this context may or may not be relevant in terms of rights and roles within a marraige, but it seems to highlight my base fears. I fear the dependency I can’t help but  perceive in marriage, I fear the finality, I fear the constraints of a marriage, although I know that this isn’t necessarily what comes from marriage. Why would our relationship change into something constraining… I’m not sure where these ideas come from, but I am so incredibly caught up in being my own person I really find it challenging to align myself to anyone at all. And the strange thing is that I don’t plan on going anywhere or changing anything about my life. I am grateful for all my blessings: I guess I might just be scared of change…. and women don’t always talk about that. We’re supposed to be gracefully keen, have planned our weddings since we were babies, and I’ve just never been like that. I don’t feel comfortable declaring this out loud, but I think it’s important to say. It frightens me to make myself vulnerable to one person so openly. One might say I don’t trust in this enough… that is possible.

I remember a good while ago first discussing the idea of marriage with my father, and even then I remember seeing marriage as like an ending, an ending of youth and the closure of a chapter of life. He said to me, no no, you’ve got it all wrong, marriage isn’t an ending but a beginning….

Meg Jay argues 30 is NOT the new 20. Oops.

In another wonderful TEDtalk, Meg Jay details how it isn’t good enough to throw your twenties away because we’re told that we have an extra 10 years to work it all out. We still need to make informed, empowered decisions in order to create the life that we would want for ourselves.
My psychology background grooms me to love the idea of making impressions upon our psyche in terms of the patterns of the choices we make. We become entrenched in the same expectation of outcome at an early age and it can become nearly impossible to get out of. Or more realistically, the patterns are so familiar that we don’t even see these things as choices! If you carry credit card debt from an early age, you expect to be in debt your whole life. If you know that you’re never going to dig up out of debt, you continue to make frivolous purchases that keep you in debt. If you have the expectation that men will always be one thing and not everything, you make compromises with the men you date, never seeking out the guy that will offer happiness in more than one or two aspects, whatever they may be for you, and so on. I certainly have some self-fulfilling prophecies in my life! Do you? Could you identify them? would you ever want to?

Settling down.

I went to a bar last night to celebrate some birthdays of friends, and was thrown back in time to a younger version of myself. The band was good, don’t get me wrong, but my friends and I had laughed as they infallibly played all the songs we had predicted earlier that day. We had been in that spot, with that band, so many times before. I had an awesome evening: connecting with new friends and sharing a milestone. It was a riot.

This morning I wake up and think back on the comments my girlfriends and I made, balancing our evening out with comfy jammies and an early bedtime. When did that happen? My younger self would have closed the bar and not been burdened with a hangover the next day… But now, I find myself looking most forward to the weekends where only half the time is planned and the other half is spent cleaning my house or reading quietly. Is this a biologically motivated progression to domestication?

Although I know that teenage minds are programmed to be greater risk-takers and I understand that, I didn’t predict the come-down on the other side. I find myself surprised by my sudden ability to cherish my time alone, when as a teen I couldn’t manage even an hour. I now find myself happy to spend a quiet evening with DP and be a boring old couple when before I was terrified of being found out as boring.

This peace is incredibly pleasant. I hope that as I get older it will continue to grow. I feel so blessed to have found a partner who I can completely ignore under the same roof. I love my job and my coworkers, although I feel I have taken my share of lumps in order to get there…I appreciate and value the seasons and the space that comes with Canada and Ottawa living, and don’t feel insecure in my banal existence here.

However, ask me again tomorrow and we will see if it still holds true.

My best friend is a YouTube superstar.

Gay Women will Marry your Boyfriends

Posted here is a YouTube video my girlfriend was a part of in Toronto. Signs you’re growing up in 2012: people become politicized and a political stand includes YouTube videos.

Please watch!

Single in the City.

I’m single. 3 years to thirty and single. I’m also the golden girl, which Laine spoke of in a previous post. She’s asked me to provide the single perspective on her blog since she’s already shacked up with Dutiful Provider, aka DP. Although apprehensive to expose all when it comes to my dating life, I felt it was my duty to share my path of self-discovery and, hopefully, in the process make you feel better about your romantic adventures. Because, let’s be honest folks, I’ve had some doozies.

If you’re in the same dinghy as me, you know that being single in your late 20’s can be slightly overwhelming at times. Your friends are rapidly coupling up around you, your feed is overwhelmed with engagement photos and you just found out your ex is now a proud new papa. Meanwhile, you’re sifting through the catalogue of douchery on a dating website and wondering if maybe you’re just destined to be…dum, dum, dum…alone. Which granted, might not be such a bad thing, but at this age can leave you in a state of panic.

Well, I’m here to tell you to take a deep breath, stop creeping through a high school acquaintance’s wedding pics and realize that, you are in fact, not alone. There are many of us doing and feeling the exact same things. We’re at a point of change in our lives and dynamics are shifting. Our early twenties were spent searching for ‘Mr. Right Now’ and, as time passes and we mature, the now slowly begins to fade.

So, join me as I lay it all out on the table. The horrific dates, the bad decisions and hopefully, the occasional gem that restores our faith in the opposite sex.

My first experiment: speed dating. Which, thanks to my golden girl, I can now justify as field research. Stay tuned.