Sinners

We are living in sin. It's true, we are sinners. On the plane to Michigan, I turned to K and asked: "whoooo's ready to play another game of we don't live togetherrrr!" We both laughed, then pored over every page of the SkyMiles magazine, picking out gifts for friends and family. My step grandmother doesn't know we live together. And she is a wonderful woman, but very strict in her beliefs. So we try to avoid giving her a heart attack at the ripe old age of seventy-four and keep the news to ourselves.

I have friends who are married, engaged, divorced, single, living with their significant others. I have friends who have kids, I have friends who never want kids, and I have friends who are trying for kids. I have friends who took jobs halfway around the world and get to travel to amazing exotic places, I have friends who are doctors, lawyers, work with celebrities, and I have friends who live in beautiful small towns with their boyfriends and three cats and write about them all. Oh wait, that's me.

Being in your twenties is incredibly unique. Everyone you know is at a different station in life, we've all had different life experiences that brought us to this point. And though we're all close to the same age, we're all going through different things.

I think it's natural to look around you and think, wow, I wish I had that. Or: damn, I REALLY don't want THAT. You compare yourself to the people around you, and because others do the same they expect certain things from you. They expect you to couple up, get married, have kids, and do everything the way that everybody else is doing them. But the truth is, who is everybody else? Not one person that I know has the same story as anybody else. I think we all WANT similar things, but the paths we choose are all very different.

Why is it that I always seem to find myself somewhere in between? I'm not married, I don't have kids. We want kids... someday. And we want to get married, before that. I think that's the "ideal" way to do it, right? But I know people who wind up having kids before they are married, and they turn out just fine. And the truth is that I'm honestly the happiest I've ever been, right here in the middle. With a wonderful man, not yet married, without kids. We want to do things like plan vacations together, travel, spend time with each other's families... we want to appreciate having this time to do what we would like without kids, just yet. And maybe that's okay. Maybe the whole point is creating your own path in life, learning from other people's experiences but doing what is right for you. And if we have to play a couple more rounds of "We Don't Live Together," then that's just fine with me.