Damn! I forgot to get Married!
The other day, a coworker made a subtle inference to me about 'it helps to have a two income family,' andas a quiet, soft-spoken man, I knew he felt some concern for my welfare...because, well...
Damn!
I forgot to get married!
This running joke began in college when a roommate brought home a cartoon poster that stated this and we proudly displayed it in Toledo Window Box, the name we gave to our student ghetto apartment near the University of Maryland in Prince Georges County.
She transferred to another school and ran off with one of her professors, and when he died, she ran off with a younger man, but I, alas, remained decidedly single, as postulated in this blog many times.
It's not that I have anything against marriage (or children) but, pretty much, Damn, I did forget to get married.
I had one or two opportunities, but I was young and restless, and didn't bite. Before you know it, I was 'too old,' and of burnt out, or coping with heartbreak, despair, family drama, and all the stuff that writers write about, because you have to write about what you know, and I didn't really know anything. How was I going to write great drama, great comedy, if I just got married and died. Or as I like to put it -
"You get married, you get pregnant, and then you die."
And, I pretty much saw marriage and becoming a mother as death.
- I guess, because so many of them end badly. Or, they just end and/or
-they never end.
Or, there's the marriage sweepstakes that is that moment in time when the man or the woman decides they are ready and the next person is the one who goes on the chopping block. I've seen this many times, and have often played the part of the Kiss of Death romance, the one who turned them back on the straight and narrow and they decided to settle down.
And, of course, I'm a natural born feminist, and saw the macho chauvinism in my provincial Irish Catholic family, and wanted no part of 'the submission of women,' and deference to men.
I like men, I just do not have any illusions about them. I was born inbetween two brothers who played football, so when somebody says to your five year old self, "lets block!" and they are ten and have about 60 pounds on you, well, you get the picture...
Sibling rivalry aside, I have met women without brothers and they marry these men that I grew up with and then grow disillusioned. I'm not going to bash men in this essay because it would be too easy, but I belong to one of those 'you make your bed and you lie in it," choices are destiny people, and I choose to remain single mostly out of fear. I found that most women end up alone anyway. Sometimes they are really, really old, and they become widowed, and its like they are 19 again, and have no skills for coping with a life without a man telling them what to do. Not that you shouldn't spend your life with someone, but if you don't want to, then don't.
Marriage is just not for everybody.
And, then of course there's the crime: Boy meets girl, boy meets another girl, shoots the first girl, or the second girl shoots the first girl, and so on.
And, then, here's the reality, I have ADD.
The other day, a coworker made a subtle inference to me about 'it helps to have a two income family,' andas a quiet, soft-spoken man, I knew he felt some concern for my welfare...because, well...
Damn!
I forgot to get married!
This running joke began in college when a roommate brought home a cartoon poster that stated this and we proudly displayed it in Toledo Window Box, the name we gave to our student ghetto apartment near the University of Maryland in Prince Georges County.
She transferred to another school and ran off with one of her professors, and when he died, she ran off with a younger man, but I, alas, remained decidedly single, as postulated in this blog many times.
It's not that I have anything against marriage (or children) but, pretty much, Damn, I did forget to get married.
I had one or two opportunities, but I was young and restless, and didn't bite. Before you know it, I was 'too old,' and of burnt out, or coping with heartbreak, despair, family drama, and all the stuff that writers write about, because you have to write about what you know, and I didn't really know anything. How was I going to write great drama, great comedy, if I just got married and died. Or as I like to put it -
"You get married, you get pregnant, and then you die."
And, I pretty much saw marriage and becoming a mother as death.
- I guess, because so many of them end badly. Or, they just end and/or
-they never end.
Or, there's the marriage sweepstakes that is that moment in time when the man or the woman decides they are ready and the next person is the one who goes on the chopping block. I've seen this many times, and have often played the part of the Kiss of Death romance, the one who turned them back on the straight and narrow and they decided to settle down.
And, of course, I'm a natural born feminist, and saw the macho chauvinism in my provincial Irish Catholic family, and wanted no part of 'the submission of women,' and deference to men.
I like men, I just do not have any illusions about them. I was born inbetween two brothers who played football, so when somebody says to your five year old self, "lets block!" and they are ten and have about 60 pounds on you, well, you get the picture...
Sibling rivalry aside, I have met women without brothers and they marry these men that I grew up with and then grow disillusioned. I'm not going to bash men in this essay because it would be too easy, but I belong to one of those 'you make your bed and you lie in it," choices are destiny people, and I choose to remain single mostly out of fear. I found that most women end up alone anyway. Sometimes they are really, really old, and they become widowed, and its like they are 19 again, and have no skills for coping with a life without a man telling them what to do. Not that you shouldn't spend your life with someone, but if you don't want to, then don't.
Marriage is just not for everybody.
And, then of course there's the crime: Boy meets girl, boy meets another girl, shoots the first girl, or the second girl shoots the first girl, and so on.
And, then, here's the reality, I have ADD.
So, it is true...Damn! I forgot to get married.
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