Being 24

Many apologies, dear readers, as this will be yet another meaningful and deep post contemplating the complexities of my life. But I promise, AND YOU CAN HOLD ME TO THIS, my next post will most definately be cynical and judgemental as usual. I PROMISE. Just bear with me.....

Its pretty tough in this day and age, to be a 24 year old woman in this day and age. We live in the age of choice and freedom. Im learning, however, that with choice and freedom comes expectation. Expectation from ourselves. From our families and our friends. Our partners our teachers our bosses and busdrivers. From those people in highschool we didnt even like, but had to be nice to because their parents were friends with our parents.

My parents expect me to be brilliant. They expect me to go back to uni. They think that I should get a degree and do a doctorate and be accademic and be successful. They want a daughter that they can boast about. My mother in particular wants me to have a GREAT CAREER, not just a job. She wants me to have this super duper job, not to worry about babies and to be one of those new age women who has kids at 42.

Mr friends expect me to be the one who succeeds. I, you see, was the one who always got the job she wanted, who always got the traineeship. I once (famously among my friends) walked into a service station barefoot to buy a coke, and came out with a job as an assistant manager. And Im the one who went from being drugged up party girl to practically married housewife with a mortgage in 3 years.

The world expects women today to be everything. We have to be able to hold down a great job, have babies, keep a household and stay thin. All at once. And if we dont, the world judges us. We have to be ambitious. Its no longer good enough to want to be married and have babies. Its no longer important to be good mothers and to teach and nurture the leaders of the future. People look down on women who want to do that.

In saying that, however, women are still expected to have babies. But not too young. Young mothers are not kosher, according to the world these days. But be careful. You dont want to be too old. Old mums are pathetic and sad, desperate maids who get knocked up because they realise that time is running out. Thats not good in the eyes of the world either.

We have to be independantly minded, because marriage is old fashioned and nothing is forever anymore. There is no room for women who believe in love. There is no room for women who are happy with part time jobs while their husbands work to support their family.

I am a young woman in my mid twenties and I am afraid that I am going to fail. So afraid that it affects my relationships. I am afriad that I will stuff it all up, take a wrong turn and end up lost. No because I feel that I have made the wrong choices. I know that I made the best choices I could with the oppurtunities I had. I am afraid because there is so many judges and so many standards, but no-one will tell you what you are supposed to be. Im doomed if I do and doomed if I dont.

You see, sometimes I think that I dont really want to be the new age woman with the new age beliefs. I dont think that men and women are equal. I have never known what I wanted to do as a career. I have never had a five year plan with choices for promotion.

The only things I have ever really wanted out of life were the things that my mother told me I didnt need. A stable home. A loving husband. Kids to teach and love that are a part of me. I might be an oddball and I might have been "the smart one" but all I have ever really know that I want is the suburban dream.Sure there are other things that I want to do. I want to write a book and I want to be on Oprah. But if I had to chose between these things and what I have always know I wanted, I would chose my traditional suburban dream.

Its tough being 24 in this day and age. With the pressure and the expectations, everything I want will always be wrong. There will always be someone who knows better who will judge.

Crikey.