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This is in response to the Weekly Writing Challenge: Golden Years
As you read the title for this post, I can hear you all saying “Pfft. Thirty? You’re still a baby! What’s not to look forward to?” And i would agree. I don’t think turning 30 is bad because it means i will be old, far from it. I have a completely different reason for not exactly greeting my 30th birthday (which is just over a week away) shaking a set of pompoms whilst doing a happy dance.
When i was young and naieve I decided that i didn’t want to have children too young. This was partly because i didn’t want to regret having children too young and embarrass the life out of them by attempting to have a ‘second youth’. So there i was, at 16, deciding that 30 was the perfect age to start a family. I’d have plenty of time to experience work, settle down with Mr whateverhisnamewillbe, get married (at around 26/27) and have a few years as a married couple before having children. When i reached 25 i started worrying. If i didn’t meet Mr whateverhisnamewillbe soon, i’d never be able to enjoy married life before starting a family at 30. When i was 28 i decided i’d better relax my plans. As long as i was in a committed relationship when i turned 30, with plans to get married and have babies on the near horizon, i could live with that. I was in a relationship so i was reasonably happy with how things had turned out to that point. Unfortunately my boyfriend got a new job which meant he was constantly on the road, driving this huge truck thing around. Slowly but surely i started to hear less and less from him. Our chats became little more than “Hi baby, i’m really tired, been driving all day so i am going to sleep. Love you, bye x” by text. I was heartbroken. We loved each other, but i wasn’t getting what i needed from him. I was willing to wait, as long as i knew we had a definite future. He couldn’t even commit to making time to talk to me anymore, let alone take time off to actually spend time with me. I booked flights to California for a two week holiday that he cancelled because he said he needed to work. I tried to re-arrange twice, but he cancelled those too. In the end i confronted him. I wasn’t a priority in his life and I needed to be. I want to settle down, I want to have a family. I don’t want to be sitting at home waiting for a quick “Hi, love you, bye” every couple of weeks over the phone, and waiting months or longer to actually spend some quality time with him.
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We broke up. It might not make sense to some, but i would rather start again now, than wait another couple of years and still be where i am now. So here i am, about to turn 30. Not feeling old, but feeling frustrated that I am not where i thought i would be. To me, the 20’s were for having fun, finding love and getting married. Now i am entering the family making decade, but i have nobody to make a family with.
I believe that everything happens for a reason. I’m not sure what the reason is yet, but maybe i am not supposed to. I just have to keep hoping that things will work out in the end. One thing my impending birthday has spurred me on to do, is to look into other areas of my life that i have more control over and see what changes i can make there. I have started a creative writing course and i hope to write fiction, just because i enjoy it. Who knows. Maybe it’ll lead me to my Mr whateverhisnamewillbe and my happily ever after. Maybe it will lead to a new and exciting career.
I guess i just have to keep on living and loving and one day, as my mum always used to say, “it’ll all come out in the wash.”
So I want to be an author... 