I'm a Christmas Cake? The other day, I was standing at the bus stop outside Tufts University. I was waiting to go downtown and trying not to slip on all the ice on the sidewalk. Two women about my age were walking on the other side of the street on what appeared to be a much less treachurous sidewalk. They were talking loudly, so the climax of the conversation was clearly audible: "Didn't you used to think, when you were a teenager, that you'd be married at 25?"
Later, on the bus, it occured to me that I was 25. And that when I was a teenager, I did expect to be married at this age. (Where did this expectation come from back then?) Now I think that that expectation is absurd. You gotta give yourself enough time to grow up.
When I was talking with friends a year or so ago about the possibility of going to grad school for philosophy, several friends or friends of friends suggested that my marriage potential would plummet with such a move. At first I assumed that this was just practicality: family life and grad studies would be require more than full-time attention. But maybe there's something more behind this assertion. I don't know.
I've always felt like I've had to choose. That if I tried to go after both, one of them (kids or academic career) would be swallowed up by the other. Realistically speaking, one only has so much time and energy to lavish.
A female philosophy grad student at Harvard pointed out to me that there are men in such programs with families, but no women with kids (can't remember if any were even married). As she spoke about this, though, her boyfriend was adoringly at her side and obviously undaunted by her academic pursuits.
From
"The Romantic Life of Brainiacs". A la the Boston Globe.
( Christmas Cake at Age 25 ) Current Mood: tired