What's a Girl to Do?

I'm 25. It was really weird when I first said it to someone a couple weeks after my birthday. Kinda freaked me out. My friends and I have commented before that you don't normally think of what your life will be like after college. Some of my friends have taken note that if they were their mothers that they would have been married and had 2 kids by now. If I were my mother, I'd be getting married right now.

I've been thinking a lot about this lately mostly because from time to time, as a single adult you're going to think about marriage and your future and kids and that sort of thing. Funny how I stumpled upon two posts by Penelope Trunk about biological clocks and putting marriage and starting a family before your career. I agree with just about everything she says, the only problem is it's not that easy to just get married. See the couple of long term relationships I have had did have the goal of finding someone I could eventually marry. Except that most guys my age aren't really wanting marriage. They freak out at the evil M word. I'm not saying it's all the males' fault but my point is that as someone in their twenties, I'd love to start a family. However, life doesn't always hand you what you want.

So what do you do when you haven't found Mr. Right yet? Be social. Network. Work on your career. I'm not going to turn myself into desperate housewife wannabe. While I agree it's ideal to get married and have kids when you're in your twenties, it doesn't always work out that way. And I refuse to let myself become bitter or get to the point of despair by counting down the years I have left of prime fertility years!

If you want to get married and have kids, sure you have to make that a goal. Work toward it. Know what you want. But while you work on that goal it doesn't mean that the rest of your life has to stop. So do your best at your career now. Who's to say that being the best person you can be today in your career won't help you find Mr. Right?

I think Trunk is really right when she says it's about a lack of control. There are always going to be some things that I don't think we can control. I think we have to be ok with that even with idealist Gen Y thinking. But that's not to say we have to roll over and accept whatever comes our way. I feel that we still have control on our attitudes and on what we make of each situation that is presented to us.