Getting older really sucks you know? As the years pass I become more and more aware of my age. I think about my death. I think about the fact that I don’t have children. I wonder who will take care of me when I am old. I wonder if I will get dementia and not know who I am anymore. I wonder if there will be a cure for bipolar disorder.
I thought by this age I would be much farther along than I am. I feel…like I am running behind. I haven’t purchased a house, I cannot have children, I have a substantial amount of debt. It feels like everyone around me has it more together than me. Social media doesn’t always help. When you see pictures of everyone’s perfect lives; pumpkin carving in the fall, pool parties in the summer.
I have my dogs and my husband. The rental home that I love. The dream job I’ve always wanted. I sit in my home office and I write. I say hello to my fish. I sit at my husbands’ grandfathers desk, I look around at all the things I’ve collected that bring me joy and I drink my coffee as I look out the window at the neighbor kids riding bikes in the street. Shouldn’t that be enough?
Do I have to rise up to societal norms and be that person that I see in the Instagram photos? The girl who meal preps with two children, a boy and a girl of course, with a perfect magazine-worthy house, and a fancy car. Doesn’t she also have a high mortgage? Stress? It isn’t always picture-perfect, is it?
Can’t I be happy without children? Can’t I be okay just being with my amazing husband, and my fur babies? I feel so much pressure all of the time. I dread the question: do you have kids? And the sympathy when I say, “No, I can’t have kids”.
I just want to be happy in the end. I want to die knowing that I made a difference. Knowing that more people loved me than hated me. That I touched people. I don’t need to move mountains, only souls. Then that, that will be enough for me.
https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-road-during-daytime-3295141
Categories: Addiction, Anxiety, bipolar disorder, Depression, Infertility, Love, Mania, Marriage, Mental Health, OCD, PCOS, Pregnancy, PTSD, Self Esteem, Social Media, Writing
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