Children Are the Future

I am 24.  Most of my life, I figured that by now I'd have children, at the very least one.  Literally my entire life, I knew (had planned, really) that I'd get married just out of high school, around 19.  I never wanted to go to college, so that part was taken care of, too.  I just knew that by the time I was 25, I would have already been married and reproduced somewhat.

Well now we jump so many years later, and I'm a year short of 25.  I'm not married yet, and I am not planning to have children for at least another two years.  I was thinking about this the other day and it made me sort of sad to realize that the plan I had my whole life wasn't coming true anymore.

I knew my whole life that I wasn't going to go to college, and even when my senior year of high school came, I didn't want to go.  My mother tried to support me in my decision and even reassured me that there were jobs out there that I could get with a high school diploma.  My junior year, I took a class in creative writing and loved it.  I decided that if I could get a degree in writing, it might be worth it.  My mom has an associates degree in sign language, and I decided I would go to the same college she went to.  That way, I would only have to go for two years and be done with college.  Then I went on to get a 4-year degree.  And now I live in Durham with my fiancé.

The point is, I had my life completely figured out for so long and none of it happened.  This weekend, my mother took my bridal portraits.  We went to these public gardens where my fiancé works, and of course being Labor Day weekend, there were lots of people in the gardens enjoying themselves.  Among these several people were children.  I found myself so annoyed by the sounds of the children, the constant screaming and the running around.  I told my mother this as we were walking around, and she simply and non-nonchalantly remarked, "Then you aren't ready for children."

It took me several minutes to let this sink in.  My mother was aware of my future plans, or at least what they used to be, and she understood that I was frustrated because my plans hadn't worked out like I was so certain they would.  Perhaps this was her way of comforting me, or reminding me that the future works out they way it is supposed to, not the way you want it to.  Either way, she was right.  I began to realize how she was right; if I were ready for children, or already had them like I was "supposed" to, I either wouldn't mind the noise, wouldn't think of it as noise, or wouldn't notice the noise.  Currently, that sound is noise.  Not in a derogatory sense, but children running around and screaming is not something I'm used to, nor something I hear on a daily basis, and at this point, I don't want to.

I've come to realize that if my life ended up the way I "knew" it would, I wouldn't know the difference.  At this point in my ideal life, I would have already been married for 5 years, with no college degree and either 2 or 3 children.  But as it turns out, I do know the difference.  I'm getting married in two months and I have two college degrees.  And no children.  I want them, very much, but as my mother so wisely pointed out, I am simply not ready for them.  If I was, I would have had them already.  Even though children are the future, and children are in my future, they are not here yet.  But when I'm ready for them, and they are no longer noise, I will have the perfect end to my ideal life, albeit a few years late.