Living In Rhythm

Something wonderful happens when you hit your mid-20's. Your friends, who you love dearly, start to enter long-term relationships, having been through enough wrong people to have found the right ones. They start getting engaged and married and having children.

It's amazing to see the important people in your life finding happiness. I want to say that it's rare, but we all know it's not. But when you see someone close to you happy and excited, and planning a wedding, you can't help but feel like that is rare. It's unique to each person.

But then there's that voice in the back of your head, when you hear that yet another person is pregnant (or engaged, or some other life-altering event is happening). That voice that's reminding you that you're still single, and everyone else around you isn't. That voice can yell at you, and taunt you into falling for that old cliché...

The biological clock.

I am 24. I am young, and just starting my life, for all intents and purposes. I know sometimes I feel old, but I'm still closer to the beginning my life than the end of it (fate willing).

So why does my heart wrench a little bit when I hear someone else's great news? Other people are finding happiness and growing up, and as much as I'm a little afraid of that, I still want it for myself.

Someday.

I want to find that person who brings balance and comfort and love. Absolutely, I do. I love children, and would like to have them someday. Someday. That day doesn't need to be now.

But that ticking in my head, that voice, is still telling me, in no uncertain terms, that I should be thinking about these things. So is my mother, but that's a whole different story.

I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine (who just got engaged and I am thrilled for) about this, and she told me something that I will now think about every time I get that sinking feeling that I'm so far away from where everyone else is.

"You may feel the tick tock, but it is merely a wrist watch, not a clock tower."