I was asked recently about what personal goals I have. The context of the question was getting at family and marriage which sort of caught me off guard. My goals these days revolve mostly around my career and my hobby, running. I haven't put much thought at all into anything else since...well...ever. I do things for fun and kind of wing it for the most part. When someone asks me about my personal goals I think, I want to be successful in my career, I want to run races and I want to be healthy and live a conscious lifestyle, travel a lot, you know, the free spirited single stuff. The number of kids I have or when/if I get married is sort of last on that list if it even shows up at all.
As an adolescent my family didn't particularly encourage the thought of marriage or kids. Consequently I never really thought about it much until I was in college. In college, however, I figured that I was so consumed by other things that I probably wouldn't ever get married and I was adamant about not wanting kids (so why do I need the marriage anyway, right?). Even growing up I never played "family" with my sister or had any baby dolls to take care of. I even remember my Dad telling me at one point that I wasn't allowed to get married until I was 30.
A lot of my friends now are married and have kids (or are having kids, or are planning to have kids, etc). I've been asked on more than one occasion if I ever feel pressured to do the same things in my life. The truth is that I really don't. Frankly, for the longest time I never really thought I'd get married at all. Primarily because I didn't think there was anyone out there for me but also because I struggle a lot (and I mean *a lot*) picturing myself a soccer mom. It just seems so....not me. I'm the career woman. I'm the girl who is going to wake up at 6am to get in a run, make a smoothie then work till 7pm every night (except for Fridays because thats happy hour day!). Where do I have time for kids in my relatively selfish world of personal goals?
The bigger problem here is that when I see my Thanksgiving holiday 10 years from now I can see me yelling at little kids to stop running in the kitchen and having a huge family dinner. I can't seem to figure out how to balance this picture with my reality right now. The fact of the matter is, I'm almost 28 years old. If kids are going to happen, it probably needs to happen within the next 6ish years. This kind of terrifies me a little bit. And, of course, on top of it all is the ever nagging question to myself: why don't I already know I want to have kids? Everyone else seems to know if they do or don't...and I just have no clue. I keep struggling between what I feel right now and what I see in the future and I can't seem to figure out how to merge the two together.
So now this question of my personal goals has me thinking about all of this. What do I really want from my personal life? Should I have goals when it comes to this type of thing? Maybe I just always thought that when the timing is right all these questions will just answer themselves. The risk is that, if they don't, then I'm left in the same position I am now...wondering.
These days at least I'm relatively certain that I'd like to get married someday. Certainly not at the expense of happiness. I'm definitely not the girl who wants to get married just to be married or have a wedding. No thanks. I'll take being single with 12 cats over married to the wrong person. And the kids thing...maybe it just takes time. The thought of having kids with the right person, at the right time isn't quite as horribly terrifying...but that doesn't necessarily make it a goal of mine. Maybe thats ok, though. And, maybe, just the idea of having kids as a "goal" is what freaks me out in the first place. To me, if bringing a life into this world is a goal then you run so much higher a risk of doing it for the wrong reasons and with the wrong person. Ultimately, then, its a completely selfish act. I think thats what really scares me about it all. I don't think it should be that way. I think that when its right (person, timing, life, etc) you'll know, and you'll be ready.
In that case, maybe its ok not to have goals about this type of personal thing. And, maybe its ok if I don't know for sure whether its something I want because its not right for me right now. And who's to say that it won't be right for me in the future?
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