Choosing My Confessions!

What I am going to write tonight is very personal. So, please bear with me.

I think I have partially found my answer, or at least I think I know "why" I ask "so what", now more than ever, as I am approaching 30.

Unlike other girls, growing up, I never had dreams of getting married or having children. Even as I grew out of my teen years, I never saw myself wearing a white dress or taking care of the garden in the backyard of a house that I would share with a husband. Give or take one or two, I never took guys seriously.

To this day, the idea of a "wedding" or a house with a couple of children and a man I call "husband" makes me uncomfortable. I really don't see myself in that picture.

Not that there is anything wrong with that picture, it's just that I dont see "me" in that picture. I like my friends' husbands. I like other people's weddings. Just not my own.

So, you could say: something, somewhere must have gone wrong. True, but I don't think it really matters what, when and why.

Did I tell you that Deborah Coyne came to my door a while back to ask for my vote in the Liberal nomination? I never asked myself why I thought she was my kind of gal as soon as we spoke. Was it because she was not conventional? The fact that she was not into "white picket fences"? Did I admire her for being so educated? For having done so much with her life? Or the fact that she had a love relationship with the (most popular) Prime Minister of Canada and had a child with him without being apologetic about it? Was it because she broke all the rules (traditions, not ethical rules) and lived her life her own way?

The fact that I am not a conventional or traditional person is clear to everyone. I don't even have a religion anymore. But until I moved to the suburbs (the neighbourhood of beautiful white picket fences) I had never realized how much I do not belong.

As I am approaching my 30s, my differences with main stream thinking become more apparent. I am approaching an age associated with thoughts of getting married, buying a house and having a couple of kids. But since such plans have never been on my agenda, I have found the vacuum that they have created for me: "What are my life plans? What is next? What am I working so hard for?"

If my mom was listening, she would say if I meet some that I like, I will fall in love, then I will have the desire to have a wedding, a house and a couple of kids. I guess it could happen. It is possible, but not so probable.

I have been in love before. I have had the desire to be a part of someone else's life, to share dreams and possibly conquer the world together. I have also often thought of adopting a girl from China. It shouldn't come as a shock then, that I have mostly picked educated men with big dreams and no desire to settle down, to fall in love with.

So, I ask myself: What do I want to do with my life? Do I want to try to fit into the norm? Do I want to give the idea of "marriage, kids and a house" a good try? Or should I start planning my life "my way", completely outside the box?

So, now you know. I am scared and I have not yet found that special goal that will define my life for me. Well, I have strong ethical values, I am passionate about human rights, my profession is saving the environment and I like learning (possibly going back to school again). But somehow all those, don't seem good enough. Life is bigger than all of those, at least I want mine to be.

Who am I? Why was I born? How can I best live my life? What makes me happy? What can one dedicate his/her life to other than raising a family?

Now that I have "lost my religion", where do I search? Where do I look? Where are the gods? Have I said too much?


Losing My Religion by R.E.M