I’m celebrating a birthday soon and I have to admit that as I have travelled through this final year of my twenties I have had plenty of time for reflecting on my life and that of my peers as my friends from school and I begin to mark these milestones together.
My life to date is a lot different from my friends from school that I have kept in touch with. We all graduated in 2002 and travelled to different places for study and work. We have all been overseas and some even lived overseas for long periods of time, and we have all finished our degrees at university some more recently as they undertook doctoral studies.
We are all in long term relationships but I am the only one who is married and also the only one with children. Another friend will marry next year. The rest all live with their partners, including the one who will marry in April, and are at various stages along the secular adult path which runs very much like this:
- move in together
- buy a house together
- get a pet together
- get engaged
- get married
We catch up as a group, there are 6 of us who keep in regular contact, every couple of years we get together as a group for dinner or a weekend away, though individually some of us catch up more regularly and whilst I love them all dearly my heart is almost breaking for them.
They are each turning 30, and their lives appear to be in a holding pattern. They have few dreams and live mostly to enjoy themselves. They earn money to travel extensively, shop and go out for dinner and on wine tours.
Marriage is a ‘maybe one day we’ll get married but we just don’t see the need because we’ve been together so long’ and children? ‘Oh, I’m not ready to have children yet!’
I can’t help but worry for them. Two friends from outside my school group both followed the secular adult path and had their marriages disintegrate within the first 12 months, despite having lived together for up to five years before they tied the knot.
Already I hear of women who graduated a few years ahead of us wanting to have children and having to resort to drastic measures because they are in their mid to late thirties and have spent years on contraception.
But as yet, this does not resonate for my friends. They seem oblivious to this fact and are content to just enjoy the pleasures of the sensual appetite.
Of course they, in their turn, feel sorry for me. I married at 22 and have four children now and I stay at home with them. I do not work, aside from a small hobby business that earns very little but is enjoyable. I profess to a faith that dictates my morality and beliefs. I am the antithesis of what they have been groomed to become by society.
But, I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’m turning thirty and I can’t help but be thankful for the life that I have now. I would not change it in the slightest. I feel fulfilled and content to continue in this vocation of wife and mother. Yes, I might be the odd one out in my school peer group, but we respect each other and have remained friends despite our differences. And that in itself is something to be thankful for too!
Originally posted 2015-01-27 22:28:37.
Thank you for such an honest and humble reflection Emily. Your willingness to live out your vocation, as well the contentment you find in it, is very inspiring. May God bless you.