Grateful #35 (which is a coincidence) Ducks not in a row

I don’t know how it happened.  All of a sudden, I was at party with all my co-worker friends I’ve been teaching with over the last nine years, and I noticed that every single friend, save one, had a baby.  Or two.  I almost felt like an imposter.  I sat with this feeling for a few days and I came up with this:

I’m in that age bracket where everyone gets married and has children.   I average one or two weddings a summer and at least three or four baby showers a year.  At times I’ve felt a little far behind, but because I never really do anything on the same timeline as others, I’ve never really internalized my lack of marriage and baby in a negative way. 

 It could be my impending 35^th birthday.  It could be my sans-child status I take with me to parties and social gatherings.  It could be that my newsfeed on facebook has been overcrowded with ridiculously cute pics of babies holding bunnies, babies dressed like bunnies, or babies eating chocolate bunnies.  Whatever it is, something has been messing with my sense of accomplishment, equilibrium, and self-confidence.  

I think they named the life-crisis cycle incorrectly.  Instead of the quarter life crisis, (because when you’re 25 everything is a crisis, really) they need to add 10 years and call it the “why aren’t all my bunnies  ducks in a row crisis.”  Because 35 year-olds have things.  They’ve done their due diligence in their 20’s, and by the time they reach 35, they have stability, a husband or wife, friends, children, and a career.  I am not naïve; I do not believe that all 35 year-olds have all of these things.  However, as I think about my peers, I can honestly say that the vast majority of them do not have holes or gaps in the areas of marriage partners or children.   Not everyone is happy all the time either; marriages break up, children go through their terrible twos and their teenage angst, and some couples decide not to have children. But all in all, 35 year olds have things lined up in an attempt to secure a happy, meaningful life.   They don’t stare down the end of their 30’s and worry that they’re too old to have children or that they’re never going to meet the right person.

The thing that makes this life crisis the most challenging is that there are not many other 35 year olds with the same fears, challenges, problems, and concerns.   They are signing their kids up for daycare and paying exorbitant amounts of money to do so, taking their kids to little league, soccer practice, changing diapers, and finding a minute to spend time with their partner in order to maintain a healthy marriage.  Pitting my issues of not having enough time to go grocery shopping at the 3 different grocery stores I need to go to in order to satisfy all of my strange eating habits, wanting to find time to take a writing class, improving my backhand, paying off debt, finding people I would want to date and getting some quality time with my friends against a mom who has her own set of issues plus kids and possibly a spouse?  I lose every time.  I feel stupid for even pretending my struggle is hard.    

 And not many other 35 year-olds can relate; they’re too busy getting their kids ready for school, helping them with their homework, and then finding whatever time they can, to work on their own things whether it be for their job, their family, or themselves.  So it makes me quiet.  It makes me keep a lot of my daily struggles inside. 

But. While I may be missing some ducks, I can still quack.  Loudly.  That is to say, I can be bigger in other areas that my peers may not have access to anymore.  I can find someone to watch my dog and go on a vacation at the drop of a hat.  I can play tennis on 3 different teams without securing a babysitter before a match.  I can take classes on the weekends, make dinner the way I like it and I can take a writing class at night when everyone else is tucking in their kids, watching tv, and going to bed.  I can write in my blog without feeling guilty or bad about having me time. 

Putting a timer on my duck pond is like strapping a weight to the few ducks I do have.  I’m just going to let my ducks float for a while and see if I can pick some up along the way, because I do want to be madly in love with someone and I do want to have children.  I just need to have my own timeline.   This may be a strange thing to be grateful for, but I am grateful for that story, “The Ugly Duckling” – not because the ugly duck became a beautiful swan, but because there were so many ducks in a row and in the end, the one who wasn’t in a row was the happiest one of all.