Navel Gazing, et al.

My best friend from high school got married this weekend. It occurred to me, while we were all standing in the courthouse, that our fourteen year old selves could have never predicted how everything would unfold. I suspect fourteen year old me would have been disappointed in how my life has turned out. Then again, fourteen year old me didn't know the first thing about life. Mid twenties me doesn't know, either. The difference is that mid twenties me knows she doesn't know anything, while fourteen year old me thought she had everything figured out.

This makes me wonder, what will mid thirties me's life look like? Will I have a better job, paid off all my crippling debts and have started a family? In a time where we all seem to be overqualified, under-payed and at times unemployed, what does the future hold for us millenials? If the baby boomers can't retire due to economic reasons, the economy keeps going to shit, and the rest of us are performing in menial jobs because we have to "pay our dues" without regards to education level achieved, what does the future look like for us?

Now, there's a lot of speculation lately of how the millenial generation is a self-absorbed vacuum of nothingness. If we were judging based on instagram and facebook accounts alone, I would be inclined to agree that my age group has perfected the art of navel-gazing. However, I believe the act of navel-gazing is one that has happened across the board in previous young working generations. It just so happens that technology and "putting everything out there" in order to connect in a disconnected society has become more and more accessible with technological tools (i.e., smartphones, laptops, tablets). I, for one, can say that no matter how seemingly self-absorbed these internet personas seem to be, most of my peers are hardworking, bright individuals that somewhat differ from the avatar they create online.

However, at times it seems like everything is just not uphill, but vertical from here on. I've been working very hard all my life to get to a financially secure point in my career. I have taken jobs and internships that would allow me to climb to a respectable point in my career. So far, it looks like financial independence, getting out of student loan debt is out of my reach, no matter how hard I work.

Sometimes I look back and wish I hadn't taken out student loans. I only took them for my graduate degree  because it seemed like a worthy investment at the time. After all, education is something you invest in wholeheartedly with the promise of a better future and more opportunities coming your way. Alas, for now, I just sit in my tiny work space dreaming of new things to come, better opportunities and trying to exhaust all and any possibilities.

I am exhausted, but hopefully mid thirties me will have a better life for this exhaustion and sacrifice I am currently going through. After all, if my best friend from high school took the marriage step into adulthood, that means we're all moving towards achieving some kind of adulthood in the midst of an economic recession.

Word's Out

I told my mother about the general wedding plans and the world didn't implode.

Ok, so I'm kind of lying. I wasn't the one who broke the news to my mom. It was my dad. I expected her to call in high spirits within half an hour of me talking to my dad, but instead all I got was a Facebook message saying "So, when's the wedding? LOL."

I don't know what scares me more, the fact that my mother seems eerily up to date with technology, or that she's acting very cool about the entire nuptial situation. I mean, she hasn't even told her sisters about it. And I would know. My cousins would have called/texted/IMed/Facebooked me by now (and if not them, their wives would've).

Needless to say, I was freaking out about having to tell my parents. It's not like they would oppose the union, since they like my boyfriend so damn much (I'm pretty sure they want to adopt him). However, this is not my first time around an engagement, or even a sort-of engagement. Last time I dropped this kind of information on them, they wasted thousands of non-refundable dollars.

Thus, I just didn't feel all that comfortable announcing, "You know that time I was getting married and then I didn't get married, so I told you guys I would never, ever get married? Well, about that... My boyfriend and I are planning on getting married sooner rather than later." Awesome, right? Well, I'm sure that's the subtext of what my parents must feel at this point.

Then again, they seem surprisingly calm about  this. Only time will tell. God, please don't let this turn into a circus.

Just in Time for Mother's Day

We're getting married. Maybe. I mean, the plans are definitely there (and by there I don't mean just in my head). We're not officially engaged, which I guess makes us engaged to be engaged (or pre-engaged, as one of my friends so lovingly calls this state).

I'm developing a headache just trying to figure out the correct term for this stage in our relationship.

My boyfriend is telling his parents this weekend. I haven't even decided if telling my parents would be a wise idea at this point, particularly, my mother. I could theoretically tell my dad and make him swear he will keep the secret. Theoretically, because my mother has the power to attain information that the CIA and the FBI don't have combined (also, the power to break down a man). I am strangely proud and terrified of being her daughter.

My mother has been constantly pushing the marriage issue the past few years. Every guy I date is suddenly on her watch list for future husband. I just ignore her comments, and promise her that I will never get married. She really loves when I do that.

Reasons why I am hesitant to tell my mother about the nuptials:

1. As of today and the foreseeable next few months, I have no ring. And this is not a good thing for my traditional mother. She will probably hound my poor boyfriend and insist he take one of the rings she's offering to give him (from her jewelry collection).
2. I want a small, 30 people maximum wedding. She will try to make it into a Hollywood-worthy production, disregard any if all of my input of taste, insist it be in the church, and spend thousands of dollars that I don't have. I don't care for some of my extended family (for valid reasons). She will invite all of the extended family (more than 50 people, by my last count).
3. I'm shy. She will broadcast the news even before I have a ring on my finger and decide to tell people about it.

More and more, I panic about losing sight of what a wedding is truly about. It's not about a party, it's about choosing a day to promise another person that I'll be a part of their team, and that he'll be a part of mine. I don't want the real reason for marriage to get lost in the shuffle of planning, as it does for many of my peers.

In a perfect world, my mother would not try to micromanage weddings. Yet, here I am typing these things into a blog as I struggle to make my choice in telling my parents about this exciting development in our lives. I worry that the stress caused by planning the previous wedding will somehow manifest itself in this new one, and that the results will yield being broken up with. Again. This makes me a bit anxious, and it has nothing to do with telling my mother. I think telling my mother makes things real, and I'm very afraid of things being real because that means I can get hurt again.

But getting back to the matter at hand, telling my mother about our plans is still a complicated issue for me. My boyfriend keeps telling me there's an ocean between me and her micromanaging glory. Though technically true, technology has shortened that gap significantly. Also, she can book a flight to "help" me plan a wedding because she has the summer off.

The masochist in me wonders how she'll react to the news. Will she go into MomZilla mode? Will she be stunned into silence and process the information for weeks on end? Will she faint? Do I have to tell her to sit down first? Will she ask me if I'm pregnant? Will she start harassing me? Will she suggest an elopement?

I guess it's just as well that this weekend is Mother's Day. We shall see.