I'm not bitter- but I probably sound it.

Over the last few years, a significant number of my friends from secondary have married. It's confusing for a number of reasons.

Firstly- what on earth ?????????????????????????????????????

I am 22 right now. 22.

22.

I can't even contemplate being a full-time teacher and my classmates are making concrete life choices. One friend got married at around 17/18 and already has a kid. How do you get there?

How does a person get there? 

It becomes more complicated when I think about the people they were when we were 16. There was pain and angst- so much angst. 

We were so young. 

These girls are married now, settled, but just a few years ago they were confused and I was the one who had it together. I'm not saying that I don't have it together right now or that I begrudge them their happiness, but I would never have predicted that they would be married and having families now. Some of them never went to uni. They didn't follow a 'path' or have any direction for their lives and now they are starting one of the biggest journeys that could be embarked upon. 

Everytime that I get a message from someone now about an engagement, I am so pleased and genuinely overjoyed for them, but at the same time it terrifies me. I'm not bitter. I know I sound it, but I am not jealous. 

I am happy with the choices I have made this far. It just makes me think about how much we really cannot predict the future. I have absolutely no idea about how my life is going to pan out. There's this moment in Gilmore Girls where Rory is worrying about getting into college or getting a job (I can't remember which) and Lorelai tells her that she's had it easy so far, everything that she has wanted or gone for, she has gotten. That moment is so real for me. It made me think that I had always done well in school. Alhamdulillah! I know I worked hard but it is a terrifying thought to really come face to face with your own fallibility. It's the truth. And that is hard to internalise. For me, I think there is a part of me which thinks, I have pursued academia, and everything that I could have expected to get, I achieved- is this it now?

I imagine sometimes that I might bump into an old teacher and they'll ask what I'm up to. They'll probably be happy for me, excited but mostly, they will think I always knew that she'd be the one to become a teacher. I can't imagine me surprising anyone. But there will be the inevitable question- what is everyone else up to? And I know that this would be the point where I might say, so and so is married, so and so is engaged, so and so has a kid... Then comes the open mouthed what! wow MashaAllah.

What about you? When are you getting married?


(sigh)


It is hard to grow up when your head isn't moving at the same pace as time and biology.

It is worse when everyone else is growing up and maturing in a way other than getting their grades.

It's not enough anymore to be the 'good kid'.

It's not enough to be the 'one who was prefect and head girl'.

It's another ballpark altogether now-

and I am resisting but I can feel it starting to chafe. I know that a time is going to come when the new version of 'growing up' will be demanded of me and I am not ready. I don't know if I ever will be.

Gosh it sucks.