Wait! I don’t want the standard plan. I don’t believe that life suddenly begins in your early twenties and you have to create your future out of thin air. Believe it or not, life has been happening all along. This has been the real world, and I have been shaping the kind of woman that I will continue to be. More than ever, being a well rounded woman is vital to success in your career, and in your personal life. And can it possibly get any harder? Not only do we have to keep up appearances, staying in shape and sporting the latest retro fad, but we have to be on constant alert for new developments in our respective fields of expertise. There’s enough Twittering, Facebooking, and LinkedIn-ing going on to make my head spin.

So with all this chaos, I’m also supposed to secure a romantic future? I’m not sure that’s a top priority anymore. My mother was married at my age - I don’t want to follow in her all-too-young footsteps. The perfect balancing act between life and work may not exist after all, and perhaps it shouldn’t. What’s wrong with immersing yourself in your job in lieu of rushing home to take care of a family? Reflect on the kind of person you’ve always been and see how that person fits into the “real world”. You may want to toss that suburban rule book out the window.

Approaching life after college…

As far as milestones go, today was a big one. College graduation. The speeches, greeting cards, and naïve undergraduates all claim that today is the day that your real life begins; as if we’ve been in a random spiral headed for collision with the real world. You can argue that this is true, but I’ll only buy it in the most literal sense: we’re now forced to accept full time jobs and begin some attempt at self maintenance.

Like many fresh grads, I’m gazing at a blank canvas. There is no longer a schedule of classes or even the temporary summer job. It is just me, and the future, staring each other down. Now the standard plan for the remainder of my life would go something like this: score an entry level job, meet a suitable man, climb the corporate ladder - but only until I get pregnant and/or am proposed to, at which point it’s safe to get pregnant! After that, life just becomes a suburban blur.

When I was in college and even Graduate school (the first time), I had great ideas about what my life would look like. The career, the husband, the kids, the house, the trips and then BAM !

And so it all came, not necessarily in that order. The only problem was integrating those parts of my life proved challenging, or more like close to impossible. Not only was I having trouble balancing it all, I was firmly planted in my new reality but not enjoying any part of the dream.  My identity became compartmentalized for sake of self preservation as I was thrust either by choice or circumstance, into my various new roles of boss, employee, friend, mother, wife, daughter, professional, and student. Finally the roller coaster came to a screeching halt after my son turned a year old. I was clueless where I was and how I got there.  It was time for change but I had no idea how to navigate it and the definition of what I wanted changed daily.

This new reality is more prevalent today than ever. Women coming out of college have decisions to make in order to chart their course of establishing their careers and lives. If they are forward thinking, they are looking at how to integrate those careers into a future partnership, extended family unit and possibly motherhood.

How do you know what form of work / life balance is right for you? Each person is unique and therefore each person’s needs are different. We can and should educate this next generation with our roadmaps. You can stay on the main highway, take the scenic route, or make a detour either willingly or because life is just that way.  Would it not be a critical piece of their decision making as they construct the framework for their lives?

Every day one of my friends is engaged, married, talking about getting married, talking about getting engaged, or complaining because their boyfriend of four years has yet to “pop the question.”   I know finding a mate, and then subsequently marrying that person is high on the list of priorities for many, but I live with the mindset, “it’ll happen when it happens”.   I understand that marriage and family is an important part of discussion in our mid-to-upper twenties, but what happened to soul-searching? What happened to self-discovery? Or “Finding” ourselves?  I think of my friends signing marriage licenses, walking down the aisle, saying “YES!” to a man bent down on one knee, and it all seems exciting, life-changing, and romantic, but I am not there yet.  I am not ready to say those words, to sign those papers, or to walk down the aisle.

Continue reading Skeptical About Marriage, Motherhood and the Elusive Balance