If I May Rant For a Second

[McGoddess09]

I was looking through a friend's picture album on myspace. I didn't get to go to their wedding, so I looked through the pictures.

I had to stop in the middle of it. I couldn't look anymore. Mixed feelings came up.

At first, jealousy came up. I do want to get married one day and to see those pictures made me anticipate my own special day and feel jealous that it hasn't come.

Of course, I was happy for them. At the same time, I was mad. They are so young. They had just turned 18 and they are getting married because she is pregnant. I had expected my friend to go so far and be one of the few people in my hometown to get a career, then a family.

Then I had to laugh because my friend was the one who always said that I would be the one to get pregnant and have to get married young.

Then I felt proud of myself. Everyone else in my class is moving in with each other, getting married, and having babies at such a young age and I'm going to school to get an education for a career.

However, because when I do come home, I stay with my mother and I go to my friends' houses/apartments, that they pay for with their significant other. This makes me feel like I'm less mature than they are.

It's just conflicting emotions everywhere. With my friends having babies and getting married, I feel like I'm always the aunt or bridesmaid, but never the mother or bride. I know it seems silly for someone my age to feel this way. I'm so young and all, but I've been taking care of a girl for 14 years and have worked since I was 14 and have been taking care of a household since I was 12 or 13. I feel so much older than I really am.

Thanks for letting me rant, however silly it may be.

[Amina516]

Youre not silly at all.

Dont think that moving into an apt or house and getting married/having kids makes someone more mature..and definately does NOT make them better than you.

Youre in college, following your dreams and thats fantastic. Theres a lot of people that probably wish they could be in your shoes, though they wont tell you to your face. Post pictures of your college and roomies and etc and i bet they have the same feelings you have, wanting and wishing they were in your shoes.

Youre on a good path in life. Take it from someone who DID have a kid as a teen and also got married @ 20 years old. Its been HARD. And though I was able to get to go to college and all that, i went @ it bass-ackwards and i sometimes wish I had the opportunity to go away for college and get that life experience BEFORE starting life as an adult.

*hugs*

[tropicsgoddess]

It's not silly to feel that way at all, McGoddess. You're 18, you have your whole life ahead of you, you're getting an education, you have a job, and you have a good head on your shoulders. As for the kids and relationship stuff, don't rush into it.

[BethB]

Honestly, have fun being young and spontaneous! I didn't get married till my 30's(2.5 yrs ago) but did have kids relatively early(first at 22) and still didn't get a chance to be young and stupid. I joined the military and forced to do some growing up. I get jealous when I hear about 19, 20 yr old coworkers who just up and take road trips for the hell of it and other goofy nonsense. Enjoy it while you can. You can grow up later

[BookstoreEscapee]

Well, if it makes you feel better, I turned 34 yesterday...most of my friends from college have careers and husbands and houses and kids, and I have a job I'm not crazy about and don't even fully understand (I kinda fell into it and it is not in a field I ever thought I'd be in), I live in an apartment with a roommate, and I'm single with no prospects in sight...

You're 18. Don't rush things.

[NightWatch]

Mcgoddess, I'm 21 and now get to take care of my 8 year old nephew full time cuz his mommy is an idiot. It's not all it's cracked up to be, I promise.
As someone who moved out at 18, I never looked down on my friends who still lived at home. I just invited them over whenever they were tired of their parents.
And I don't think less of any of my friends who don't have kids to raise. In fact, I would rather be able to just do what I want whenever I want, but I can't. If I want alone time with my bf I have to wait for the kid to go to bed, or beg someone to take him for a few hours. It's not something I'm ready for by any means, but I wasn't willing to watch my 8year old nephew slowly starve to death. I'm pretty bitter about how she had no problem hefting her kid off onto other people the second they offered. If ya didn't catch that...

[MergedLoki]

yea gotta go with others.

to be blunt

moving out and crapping out a couple kids and getting married young doesn't = mature.

and the people who THINK it does are immature.

ok the moving out of your parents basement thing does = maturity at a point in your life, can't live @ home forever. but if you're in school you prob don't have the financial means to do so. I know I don't. I moved back home with my parents because even though I work at a good paying job in my field I'm going to university partime (which is still racking up a $2000+/year tuition fees etc.) so I dont have enough $$$ to move out on my own.

yet... lol come june when i graduate i'm outta here.

[BookstoreEscapee]

moving out and crapping out a couple kids and getting married young doesn't = mature.

and the people who THINK it does are immature.

This is very true. My ex is 45 and I would not call him mature (luckily he doesn't have kids; though I feel bad for his fiance since I have a feeling she doesn't fully know what she's getting into. For her sake, I hope he's been more honest with her than he was with me).

ok the moving out of your parents basement thing does = maturity at a point in your life, can't live @ home forever. but if you're in school you prob don't have the financial means to do so. I know I don't. I moved back home with my parents because even though I work at a good paying job in my field I'm going to university partime (which is still racking up a $2000+/year tuition fees etc.) so I dont have enough $$$ to move out on my own.

It always amazes me the number of people I see on Teh Internets (not talking this site, just in general) who seem to think that turning 18 means you automatically should be moving out of the house. First of all, plenty of people turn 18 when they're still in high school (though I didn't turn 18 until a month+ into my freshman year of college, since my birthday is late; I was born on the cutoff date and was the youngest kid in the class for the first few years of school). Plenty of 18-year-olds are in college and working part time, if at all. And there aren't too many highly lucrative jobs out there for someone just out of high school.

[FuzzyKitten99]

peaking from someone who married fairly young, DO NOT MARRY JUST FOR THE SAKE OF GETTING MARRIED AND HAVING A "FAMILY".

I did. Let's just say it didn't end well. I loved my now-ex. I am sure I was in love with him at some point. But there were some red flags that I ignored because I so much wanted the day of wedding vows and bliss and a family of my own that I never really had growing up.

It was ok for while. Until I started relying more on myself than my now-ex. I was very dependent on him emotionally and financially. He put me on a pedestal, and for a while, that worked for me. I had low self esteem and had no interest in dating anyone else because I didnt want the heartbreaks that would inevitably happen. So I married my high school sweetheart. Now, we didnt get married right away. We did move in together shortly after graduation. I was gonna move out of my dad's anyway, and at the time, he wanted to move in with me. So instead of going to college, we both worked full time at various jobs and lived together. He had proposed to me our Senior year of high school. Because he had, I STUPIDLY gave up a 75% scholarship to a riding school on the East Coast. So instead I took up a job in retail.

We had some relationship issues, and basically it boiled down to us needing to not live together and postpone the wedding until the next year. We each moved back with relatives and went through premarital counseling. All was well, we set the date for the following year and it all went off without too much trouble.

We were both about 22 when we finally did get married. 3 months into our marriage, a little "+" sign showed up on the HPT. I have always wanted to be a mom, and even though i thought I was ready, and I LOVE my oldest son more than anything, looking back, we should have waited and used BC. We should have enjoyed being married first.

We bought our house from my grandparents, planned for and had a second baby, and the whole time I was trying different things to earn an income at home, maybe start a business, i did daycare for a while. I would try various things to make myself happy. Those things would last about 6 months or so, and then I would find myself unhappy. That and I was getting discouraged because my job prospects were slim due to no formal post-secondary education.

so two years ago, I basically figured out (after all this time) that I wanted to be a chef. I have talent in cooking/baking, as i have been told by even strangers (from my potluck dishes at work, etc). I told my then-husband what I wanted to do and that I wanted to go to school for it. Before he asked how much tuition was, when I told him the school schedule and that I would have to work afternoons and evenings at my retail job, his first comment was "What about us? What about our time together?" No "I'm behind you 100%" or "I will do what I can to help you succeed".

For about a year up until then, I had already been wrestling with my feelings for him. One day I would be totally in love with him, want to be with him, then the next, those feelings would be gone. I could go a week without seeing him and not really care. However I was scared about what these feelings meant. So I stuck it out, thinking maybe the feelings were temporary. Meanwhile, I wanted to go to culinary school. Tuition for the AAS program was appx $43,000. then-hubby, being a paranoid money-driven jerk, balked at it. Saying I already failed at a couple other endeavours, he didn't think it was wise to invest that much in an education he doesn't think I would finish. I understand his concern about the cost, but I had already weighed the pros and cons to it and I was (still am) more than determined to finish due to my really wanting this and the financial impact.

At the time, I wasn't ready to go to school yet, I had wanted to wait until this year anyway. When my oldest was in 1st grade and my youngest would be old enough for preschool. That would eliminate some daycare costs. So wrestling with my feelings all last year, and my husband's reaction to my finally deciding a career that I have potential in, didn't make for a good thing when our house caught fire this last December. We were already on the rocks and there were several other things going on that essentially we filed for divorce around the end of February. He and I had already started seeing other people and we planned to stay married for the sake of the kids, but that just wasn;t gonna work out.

Our divorce was final this past May. September 1st this year would have been our 7th anniversary. We were together for a total of about 10 years. And after all the crap we have been through since December, he has just now started being civil. Though he still is much of a control freak.

I didn't want to hijack the thread, but I didn't feel the need to start one just to get my story out there. Sorry this turned long. There are more details to my story, but the post is long enough.

I love my kids and I don't really regret making the decisions I made in my life. I just wish I knew then what I know now. I love my kids and they are really one real good thing that came out of my marriage.

Bottom line is basically what I typed first line.

[Sliceanddice]

i understand how you feel mcgoddess.
i am 22 and have know since i was 16 i wanted a family eventually and until February 2008 i thought i was on track to be able to start one when i was 26. i had a good job, could pay for my own school and was beginning to really be able to put away savings.
then i lost my good job and now might not be able to have my bachelors until 26 when i had hoped to be two years out of school by then. i also finally kind of meet someone i like and i 'lose' my way to to talk to her (i signed up for a online dating site/social networking site got bored with it really quick and only kept going on after the first week because i 'meet' this really cool funny girl who i had a lot in common with and while im out of town with my family she sends me a message saying im the only one she talks to on the site so shes canceling her account and i can contact her on... since she had quit the site wouldn't let my open the message to read it all only the first sentence...)
so now i feel like all my plans and possibilities are over.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I didn't move out of the family home til I was in my mid twenties. I couldn't afford anything but a flatshare and since I did not want to move in with a bunch of people, I had to wait til a single flat came up to rent which took a long time.

[protege]

Well, if it makes you feel better, I turned 34 yesterday...most of my friends from college have careers and husbands and houses and kids, and I have a job I'm not crazy about and don't even fully understand (I kinda fell into it and it is not in a field I ever thought I'd be in), I live in an apartment with a roommate, and I'm single with no prospects in sight...

You're 18. Don't rush things.

Well put. I turn 34 next year...but I didn't move out until I was 30. Yes, I lived with my parents...but only because there were a few things I wanted to do first. Things like paying off my school loans early, buying and paying off the car early, and eventually putting a substantial down payment on a house. 3 months after I turned 30, I closed on the house, and moved. I've been in that place for 3 years

Seems that most of my friends are married and have families now. I can't say I'm really anxious to fall into that 'trap,' after watching my parents fight for most of the past 35 years. Aggravation at home? No thanks...I get enough of that at work

But, I do know that those who got married young (i.e., immediately after college) soon found themselves in trouble. They either ran out of money, or decided that they rushed into it...and got a divorce. Now they're bitter about having 'wasted' their lives

[Bella_Vixen]

Def don't rush things. I refused to get my own place for the longest time because the only place I could afford at the time was the ghetto. Seriously. If a place is charging $300/month for a 3 bedroom apt. and includes free cable, rec/excercised area, etc, it is probabaly not the best area to live.

I lived with my mother. I paid 1/3 rent and all the bills. It was more then fair.

I know have a nice apartment with nice neighbors {hi Becks! } and couldn't be happier. Who cares if it happened when I turned 30?

It's not written in stone that you MUST do certain things just because you are a certain age (just check out the adult driving thread for an example).

[AccountingDrone]

I have lived in a ghetto ... 13th Bay St in Norfolk. DOn't let the proximity to the beach fool you if you look at it on a map. Whores, pimps, bikers, the poor in general. When I was living there a squid in the building behind me killed his wife and left her body in the bathtub for a month. He kept claiming he was having plumbing problems and showering in the neighbors apartment ...

[Jester]

We should have enjoyed being married first.

One of the things I respect most about my parents is that they did just that. The got married February 14, 1957. My oldest sister didn't come along until May, 1966. Do the math.

Also remember that at that time, in this country, that was an unusual thing to do, to be married and not having children. But my parents didn't care about what was expected of them, they did things their own way, not having their first kid until Mom was 30 and Dad was 33. They enjoyed being married for years before bothering with kids. And it seemed to work out well for them!

so now i feel like all my plans and possibilities are over.

Over? OVER? Because things got delayed? That is all that happened, your plans got delayed. That isn't the end of anything. It is merely a change in schedule. As John Lennon famously said, "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans." This is not a movie, and things don't always follow the script. And thank goodness for that, or we might miss so many great things. Had I followed my own "script" for my life, I never would have ended up in Key West, where I have spent the last ten years and had an absolute blast. I also would never have become a magician, which I have to say is freakin' awesome! And I would not have met so many of the wonderful and awesome people I have met in my life.

A change in plans is not the end of things, but merely a change in plans....maybe even the beginning of something greater than the original.

"Over? Over? Nothing is over until WE say it is!"

When I was living there a squid in the building behind me killed his wife and left her body in the bathtub for a month. He kept claiming he was having plumbing problems and showering in the neighbors apartment ...

Well, you have to admit that a corpse blocking the drain is kind of a plumbing problem!