So this is 32
I am thinking of bugging out of a Christmas party I’m supposed to attend tonight. You know, not being ready for happy people and all. *holds hair back, pukes*
I was thinking last night how, wow, this isn’t where I thought I’d be at 32. My career has finally caught up with my expectations, which had been my biggest ongoing struggle to date. But now, it’s time to work on the life outside of it.
I was also thinking that, wow, once I am supporting my Mom, well, there goes any chance I might have of trapping landing a man. But I hope not — she’s part of the package, just like any single parent brings a child into any new relationship. Initially she may be a dependent (hello tax credit!) but I know she doesn’t want to be a burden and once we get her established, I hope she’ll meet a sugar daddy who will take care of her. 😉 (Hey, if I’m gonna dream, do it big, right?)
The weird thing is that I’m not opposed to any of this. I want her down here. I want to help her right now, because I can. Because I always knew a day would come when all the elders (who got sick in succession — Mom’s taken care of her grandmother, mother and father without a break in-between) would be gone.
My grandmother had always told me to skip college — to get some crap job and save up for a car and wait to meet a good man. But that’s the thing. She got the best man out there. Her life worked out that way. I saw my mom date too many clowns, losers and bozos to believe in Prince Charming coming to find me.
Besides, like I said, I always knew that once everyone was gone, I’d be the one left standing. That’s why I left home at 18, to go to school and live on my own and eventually move out-of-state — to develop my own life, one that was insulated and isolated from everything. Something I could escape to, return to, take solace in.
I guess I took all the opportunities and now I can share them with someone who needs nothing more than escape and solace.
And it’s a lonely city here. Really it is. It will be nice to have someone to go to dinner with, someone to help upkeep the apartment, someone who cares that I walk this earth. Now, I need my space and am a terrible roommate because I’m happier being alone, but I’ll work on me. Maybe it’ll prepare me for something different in the future — something more what I had in mind.
That’s the thing. I had a very different picture in my head of me at 32. I guess I always had a loose plan, to get married in my early 30s, to possibly be persuaded to shit out a kid by 36 — I know medical science will allow me to be fertile well into my 60s, but I don’t want to be 110 at my kid’s high school graduation. 😉
I’m so afraid Mom and I will end up like Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest in “Practical Magic”, with people skulking up to the spinsters’ house in the middle of the night to ask us to cast spells for them. 😉 Because you know we would! (Leave your money on the nightstand. *cough*)
I was just thinking about how many times I did something locally — festivals, fairs, restaurants, whatever — and called Mom to say that the next time I had her and my granfather in town, I wanted to take them there. And now, she’ll be right here to enjoy all the things that I do. I hope she’ll like it here — I hope this is the change in life that she’s been needing, and that she takes it and runs with it and makes things happen for herself.
And maybe someday, I can hire her as my nanny and it will serve as the world’s justification for the recent miserable, fucked-up series of events that led us to this place in our lives.
And in that, I can start looking forward to the next phase of this journey. …