Christine 1, Marriage 0

Recently I received a request on Facebook from a girl I knew in high school. We were never truly close and I didn't want to come off as being rude or snarky so I accepted the digital friendship token that was laid in my inbox. Shortly after I clicked "add to friends" she im'ed me. Aside from the "hey how are you" banter (actually it was "hey how r u"), she asked, "r u married yet?" Apparently she is married, with 4 children. I told her I am enjoying the single life in the big city.

Normally, I would have been irritated by such a question; the idea that my life is incomplete because I do not have anyone to share it with,or don't cart around children is enough to drive any singleton mad. I love children--someday I will cart around a slew of them--well, maybe not a slew, but you get the idea. I just never wanted to just have that be the only thing to aspire to do. Do I want to get married? For sure. Would I rather graduate college, go teach English in a foreign country, go to NYC for my MFA, and then figure the rest of that bullshit out? In the words of the lesser Palin, "You betcha!"

I recall having many pep-talks from my best friend (who graduated college, is currently in Korea teaching English, and has lived in NYC) that a woman doesn't necessarily HAVE to go into being brood mare for the state--she has many options based upon what SHE wants to do; meanwhile I felt like a loser because I wasn't married or in the vicinity of that sort of life. Now, being 29, I am a bit older and wiser. She knew something that I couldn't quite grasp (she did graduate before me, mind you). I write my own destiny. I may bloom early in some things, but late in others. And who the fuck cares? I love my life and I wouldn't change it for the world. Everything I've gone through has been done so for a specific reason. If I weren't in school at Roosevelt University in Chicago, I would have never met the most amazing people I have, I would not be taught by such a faculty and I wouldn't be the person I am today. And I rather like myself, married or no. I am not a failure.

Elbert Hubbard once said, "A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in on the experience." In these terms, I am as rich as The Trump sans the buildings, golf courses, tv shows, ex wives and raccoons on my head. Who needs that anyway? Not I.

So while my "new" friend from high school may love her life--and I'm sure she does, it doesn't mean that I should feel disgusted with my own. We simply have different priorities at this moment. She may be up late with her three year old, where I may be woken up by my visiting cousin, having a disagreement with her soon to be ex-boyfriend. My vision for my life is no more skewed than hers. Then again, she said she missed Florida--and that is one thing we'll never see eye to eye on.