Waking up on the road less travelled
This afternoon, while I was having lunch and reading yet another tale of the trials and joys of motherhood in Real Simple magazine, I somehow woke up to the fact that I've been travelling on Robert Frost's proverbial "road less traveled".....
....and that this particular road is becoming less and less traveled as time goes on.
Let me explain: we are at a point in time when being single, and being a mother, are no longer two incongruous states of being. In fact, women's magazines often publish articles about the joys of single motherhood. No longer is there a huge differentiation between joys of motherhood either. Sure, the challenges of single motherhood may be different than the challenges of married motherhood, in some respects. Yet both are joy-filled states of motherhood....
And that brings you to me: neither a married and a mother nor single and a mother.Kind of like a retro single woman---the kind that everybody thought might be a little "funny" in some way....and in need of help...
But few rarely ask how one ends up single without child or husband (now that we know those two can be mutually exclusive or inclusive.) I guess it's one of those "too polite" questions that people don't ask.
Or don't really want to hear the answer.
It's funny how I don't feel comfortable in single-skin nowadays, any more than I felt comfortable in married-skin years ago. Sometimes I think I've done things in the wrong order--got married too young (first at 21) and got my education too late (at 40.)
Then I realize that, really, in the world I come from, having my own life was a matter of taking that Road Less Traveled.
I didn't plan it too well though--and maybe that's because part of me never wanted it. Sometimes I think that I really wanted the conventional, settled-down life, just not at the expense of an education, or at the expense of having fun. Or at the expense of anything, really.
Does commitment and family always require a sacrifice of self? When I talk to people, I hear how things change once family comes along. I know things change, because I've changed as I've gotten older. But do we have to force the change or does it come naturally?
Sometimes I think, in the past, I was trying to force the change for someone else's benefit. That's part of why I ended up here, on this road less traveled, rather than on the same road everyone else is on...That's why I was married at 21 and graduating college at 40.
They like to say that there are no boundaries, that we can make our lives what we want them to be. But there's something to be said for being conventional. There's a certain security that comes with the social life that follows the rhythm of the steady regular drum. Sure, some people stray for awhile, take that Walk on the Wild Side. But they go home. They go back to the beat and rhythm that has kept western civilization going for so long.
It makes me wonder if it's life experiences or temperment that leads some of us to take the road less traveled. Or is it a combination-like nature and nurture. Is taking a road less traveled what makes me more of a "writer" or "artist" type than if I had familial accouterments? And is that just a "type," a convenient pigeon-hole for other people to place me in so that they are comfortable in my presence? Which, then, might make me *very* uncomfortable in my own skin.
or can I just say, "I've taken a road less travelled, just to see what's down there." and leave it at that.
I don't know....I'm still figuring out how I got here...
Advert courtesy of Lulu's Vintage Blog
....and that this particular road is becoming less and less traveled as time goes on.
Let me explain: we are at a point in time when being single, and being a mother, are no longer two incongruous states of being. In fact, women's magazines often publish articles about the joys of single motherhood. No longer is there a huge differentiation between joys of motherhood either. Sure, the challenges of single motherhood may be different than the challenges of married motherhood, in some respects. Yet both are joy-filled states of motherhood....
And that brings you to me: neither a married and a mother nor single and a mother.Kind of like a retro single woman---the kind that everybody thought might be a little "funny" in some way....and in need of help...
But few rarely ask how one ends up single without child or husband (now that we know those two can be mutually exclusive or inclusive.) I guess it's one of those "too polite" questions that people don't ask.
Or don't really want to hear the answer.
It's funny how I don't feel comfortable in single-skin nowadays, any more than I felt comfortable in married-skin years ago. Sometimes I think I've done things in the wrong order--got married too young (first at 21) and got my education too late (at 40.)
Then I realize that, really, in the world I come from, having my own life was a matter of taking that Road Less Traveled.
I didn't plan it too well though--and maybe that's because part of me never wanted it. Sometimes I think that I really wanted the conventional, settled-down life, just not at the expense of an education, or at the expense of having fun. Or at the expense of anything, really.
Does commitment and family always require a sacrifice of self? When I talk to people, I hear how things change once family comes along. I know things change, because I've changed as I've gotten older. But do we have to force the change or does it come naturally?
Sometimes I think, in the past, I was trying to force the change for someone else's benefit. That's part of why I ended up here, on this road less traveled, rather than on the same road everyone else is on...That's why I was married at 21 and graduating college at 40.
They like to say that there are no boundaries, that we can make our lives what we want them to be. But there's something to be said for being conventional. There's a certain security that comes with the social life that follows the rhythm of the steady regular drum. Sure, some people stray for awhile, take that Walk on the Wild Side. But they go home. They go back to the beat and rhythm that has kept western civilization going for so long.
It makes me wonder if it's life experiences or temperment that leads some of us to take the road less traveled. Or is it a combination-like nature and nurture. Is taking a road less traveled what makes me more of a "writer" or "artist" type than if I had familial accouterments? And is that just a "type," a convenient pigeon-hole for other people to place me in so that they are comfortable in my presence? Which, then, might make me *very* uncomfortable in my own skin.
or can I just say, "I've taken a road less travelled, just to see what's down there." and leave it at that.
I don't know....I'm still figuring out how I got here...
Advert courtesy of Lulu's Vintage Blog
Photo courtesy of iStockPhoto.com
posted by Tish Grier at 1:24 PM
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