ITS NO FAIRY TALE ...

GOSH I'm 33 and soon to be 34 years old, oh dammit. 34 people 34!.... that number used to mean a lot in the past. I remember when I was 18 to look up to people my age as real grown ups with hell of responsibilities and wisdom, guess I was mistaken. A couple of days ago, I caught myself starring to my face in the mirror, what's wrong in here, who is this? I'm no girl and definitely no woman, just a 33 years old single grown up lady who many might for sure not consider her young anymore. I looked back and wondered how did this happen and why. I meet up with some friends, same age group and we act as goofy as always, all wearing the usual jeans and instead of funny T-shirts we wore nice shirts, now as we can afford it!. Some are a little bit sad as we sure did witness some of life misfortunes and losses, some are more cynical as we all do bitter many of this life outcomes, yet at the end we found each other gasping at the fact of us looking like grown ups and supposed to act as so by others but we dont feel so yet. We go on checking our hair and YEAH thank God no grey hair yet, guess we can still act young inspite of what our society expect from us.

In my early twenties I was sort of calm and relaxed, it will happen, it must happen as there was no other scenarios in my poor silly mind but that, I will fall in love, get married and by the time I am 30 I will have this small home that I will be sharing with a husband and two kids. I never pictured myself but so, the other options or alternatives never existed as this is what I was brought up to be and taught to end up as, a loving wife and young mother, though I didn’t want to look like other mothers, I wanted to be a hip mum, outgoing and cheerful and not loaded with responsibilities, as why would I since I'm to marry a wealthy loving guy and will have a strong marriage no matter how much we will fight. This vision was so relaxing, easy and lovable to me back then, and down the road I didn’t even bother to look for that guy as sooner or later he will show up and my fairy tale will just be. By the time I was 29 I started feeling this sudden pain followed by a certain kind of panic that I never thought I would ever feel. I looked around me to find half of my friends either married with kids or divorced with kids while the other half either traveled abroad escaping a life they didn’t want or just left to follow a certain kind of dream, while the others are just single and wondering where the hell is he?!

I sat wondering, well what if I exerted some effort, maybe he is lost, maybe he is with the wrong one and don’t know how to find me, what if I just shined, bought myself a torch or something and started looking for him instead of waiting. Then I turned to my married friends, the one who have been married for a decade now and look nothing like me, none dared to confirm happiness as if they were afraid I would envy them or something, they all denied it and for no good reason, even the ones who married their sweethearts. Or maybe they just simply didnt wanna discuss their misery and are just living in denial assuming thats that what it is supposed to be like. Or maybe its only me looking for a justification that will satisfy me and they are really okay, happly married and it turned just fine for them, so whats there to discuss, diapers maybe!. So I just ignored them and turned to my divorced friends and wondered, did you ever picture yourself in your 30s being divorced with kids or without, what did go wrong, what happened exactly, and they were the honest ones, they opened up saying we were simply fooled, we were raised up wrong, our parents told us that this is how it is and this is how it will be and we being the polite obedient kids we are just followed them to the trap. But it turned out not to be what they said it would be and our lives just shattered. One of them with sorrow in her eyes told me that right after her husband betrayal she turned to her mum and asked what wrong did I do, I did exactly what you taught me, I was everything a good wife could be if not more then why am I to be rewarded as so, and sure her mum answer was its your fate, life aint always fair.

But no body mentioned anything about life being fair or not when we were young, we had dolls and played mothers, we had Danielle steel and we dreamed of the loving hero as husbands, we never pictured ourselves as singles, divorced, or alone for any logic reason, in our dreams we were always loved, with someone and cared for and caring for someone. My other single friend who is about to be 38 soon looked at me with bitter eyes saying no matter how pretty, well behaved you are, if its meant to be then its meant to be. Some do compromise, some do go with the flow, some even would just go marry to escape their parents, have a kid to live for and then they would call it off and get a divorce as mission is accomplished. Even married people no matter how they fake happiness, yet not all of them are really happy, and who would be if they are doing nothing but imitating their sad parents who just like them dreamt of happiness but dreamt of it for their children as they didn’t manage to have it. she turned to me saying she is single and looking but no matter where she is looking seem that its not meant to be, its not her fault or maybe it is, she will never know, all she knows is that she doesn’t want to end up alone forever now with her parents are old and sick and giving up on life and she got nothing but them. Very well educated, good looking, sexy, good family well bred and there is absolutely nothing wrong about you as you follow perfectly the pattern of a good wife in our society yet still single in your 30s and for no good reason. You hear them saying there are no more good guys, all the good ones are taken, men don’t want to marry anymore as there are a lot of fish in the sea., or even some might just end up saying you are over qualified for the guys in this country, a word that’s common among HR people in interviews but new to my ears in such life context.

She so pretty, lovable, cheerful in her late 20s looked at me saying thank God I didn’t have a kid with him. My divorced friend who married her high school sweet heart started saying when I asked her what went wrong. She answered calmly saying nothing, our parents fooled us, they gave us everything believing we will be happy, it was all on silver plates presented to us, we never exerted effort in anything, we decided to follow their pamphlet and got married and acted as they told us yet all of a sudden we felt we are not them and we are not happy and that we have been fooled to play a part in a game they created maybe to pass time or something but this game didn’t fit us so we ended it. However, since parents put the rules, now as a divorced young lady she got to stay in the frame that was created by them for divorced young women, no matter which class she came from, how she is, the thing is she is young and divorced which means she is not allowed to live alone, or stay outside late or travel alone, she is to accept any guy who would propose now that she is divorced and her chances are less! And various other lame rules that one would just stop at and wonder what the hell is that?

My other single 30 something friend who was sort of complicated as she did date a lot and now she doesn’t fit any kind of pattern and managed easily to scare guys away, she took it easy and said our parents always prepared us for the same ending, happily married with kids, non of them ever mentioned anything about being single or divorced or widowed, it was always happily married with kids, they would go urge you to have kids once you get married so the frame they created for you would be perfect, even worse, as its for their frame of being grandparents would be perfect and complete, you happy or not, that’s what you wanted or not is not their problem. She said that she once remember asking her miserable mum if she got married will she be happy or as miserable as her and her mum answered that it goes without saying that she will sure be happy and will be lucky and why wont she be since she is a good girl and pretty. We both laughed at the idea of a good girl as we both remembered that we did date guys who broke up with us for that exact same reason, and we were just left out there wondering what the hell was wrong with being the good girl as wasn’t this the only way for me being rewarded after years of depression and deprivation?!

A table of 6 girls, 2 divorced and 4 singles, had their coffee, checked their watches as we all still have curfews in our 30s, smiled at each other and paid the cheque and were about to leave when I looked at them saying, you can complain, you can go blame your parents, your fate or even yourself for believing something and being slapped on the face with something else, but the thing is no matter how your life turned out to be, you have to ignore your childhood dreams and your parents agenda, look for what you really want, feel peace, accept life as it is and be certain that its not always fair and that life simply isn't a fairytale.