I cant believe it! I just can not fathom it. People around me are getting married, engaged and committed. Friends, class mates and colleagues - some my age and some younger than me.
In the beginning it was fun. I got to dress up, go to their weddings, feast on various delicacies and have fun. There was always this question of what to gift. But then, I have always had friends who were too good at things like these. So I never really worried about that.
It was my school mate who started it, right after we finished our boards. Yup. You got that right, at seventeen. Then it was J, another school mate who got married when she finished college. I was still in college then. Then there were two college mates who eloped. They were the talk of the college for days to come.Another college mate got married and came back for her final semester. And then there were always other friends, my best friend included who were busy getting married and setting up house while I was away in a B-School.
But all of these were very sporadic "instances".
But now. Now there is one whole slew of people I know waiting to tie the knot. The people with whom I played ring-a-ring-a-roses are now busy planning their lives. And the others who have already done so, have all fit in so very well into the roles of ideal wives, daughters-in-law, sisters-in-law and so on. I asked one friend who got married last year if I could ever ever do it. Pat came her well practiced reply, "Of course you can and you will. I mean there will always be this fear. I mean its such a big responsibility... Such a big step. Some guy you dont know. And a whole new family that you need to accept.....Everything is so very new...." That was the day I realised two things. One, My own friends were getting ready to be wives and mommies and that they were trying out all their new knowledge on me. Two, my idea of a marriage was'nt exactly shared by my friends. One reinforced what I had suspected for a very long time, that most of my friends and class mates thought of me as somebody who dint know any better and who had to be "guided". Two added to my friends' belief that I had to go against whatever was traditional and acceptable. I dint quite like the very ideas!
Disclaimer : Before the few smart alecs I have amongst my readers, who never see the point and have always mis-read my posts start writing off this post as an "Everybody around me is getting married, And Oh I am so very single" post, thats just so very not right.
And its not that I cant handle something thats supposedly so very grown up either.
I have always thought of my family in terms of my parents, myself and my sister. Leaving this family to start another one, where I did be what my mother was to my father, me and my sister is not something I ever thought I was gonna deal with. I have'nt ever thought of myself as a wife or a parent. Its not about growing old, its about having to play other roles.
Its just that I am yet to figure out myself and what I exactly want to do with my life. And people around me have made very crucial life decisions. One friend of mine even has a two and a half year old kid.
Some where deep down, within myself, something tells me while I cant handle the idea of being responsible for myself, some people my age are responsible for others. They even welcome and reach out to this "additional" responsibility. While I am just cautiously testing the shallow waters of responsiblity, the kids I grew up with are very confidently swimming in deep waters.
Am I just being the late bloomer I have always been, needing more time than everybody else to get used to an idea? Have all those friendly taunts of not being great with responsibilities and being a goofer emotionally scarred me for life?