Dear Claire,

You know, society has an ironic sense of humor as it passes down certain expectation to women from their adolescent to their adulthood. From your parents to your peers to the toxic marketing constantly flashing in front of your face. From a young age, girls are told that a good ‘girl’ are sweet, kind, polite, and do not get fussy over petty issues. As a young adult, girls are told to be a certain kind of pretty, smart, but not too smart while holding a degree and a boyfriend in both hands. Then as adults, they should be aware of their biological clock so should be married sooner than later then give birth to tiny, little devils. They should nurture the little devils until they can survive on their own to which they can retired at old age. Why should they do all this? Because for women, it is a responsibility that society has create for them since time innumerable. And since society is all knowing, every woman should follow the path it had laid down for them because if they do, then they will certainly obtained immense happiness from fulfilling their duty. Yes, immense happiness. So GOD FORBID that all your planning goes out the window because life sucks, but the clock is still ticking so better get to it again.

So Claire, you almost got the man, the ring, the wedding, maybe the house and maybe the kid. But now it’s all put on the back burner because life happened so now you have to plan all over again. Yet…yet you know you don’t have that much time left so to do it all over again while expecting any results? Not possible. But you been following the plan so why did it turn out so badly? WHY exactly do you have to start from scratch again? So of course you’re pissed, of course you feel lost. You have put in so much effort only to get nothing in the end, only for the plans to fall apart. Now you don’t any steps to follow so what do you do?

But you need to take a step back and examined whose goal, whose plans you are really following. Because for you to worry about your biological clock when a person is dying means either you haven’t come to grasp with your mortality and so fear the inevitable so you need to do something to distract yourself or that you feel like you’re failing someone or something out there because you haven’t met the goal of get married and start a family. So which is it? Or is there something more to it? An expectation engraved from your childhood? The need to show the world that you’re living the life somehow? The need to compete with your friends or relatives as they start their own family?

Before, you expected to be happy from following the plans of move in, get engaged then marriage then have children and so on, but as you’ve noticed, life sucks and nothing ever really goes the way you expect. So what do you want to do? And I don’t mean what society is telling you which is get hitch, start a family then retired, but what would you actually do if all of that wasn’t a priority? Of course, being a mother is a great goal too, but you don’t really need a man to do that anymore. There are many options out there for single women to have children without the man and the ring. But if that isn’t what you really want, then what do you want?

Sit down with yourself and ask these questions and more. You’re unhappy and you’re lost. Explore these feelings, stew over them. Look for them, look at them. They’re trying to tell you something.

Good luck.

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by GL.
• This reply was modified 6 years ago by GL.