My roomies and I were doing seemingly typical Thursday night things – rating engagement rings on the Tiffany website, discussing the pros and cons of raising a child on the east coast vs. the west coast (I’d want a kid with Hollywood charisma but an Ivy League education), comparing the effectiveness of Oxiclean to a trusty storebrand detergent – when it occurred to me.
We are nesting.
In a biological sense, nesting happens when pregnant ladies (or birds) have the instinct to baby-proof the home and rid each nook and cranny of dust, stray legos and other toxins.
I haven’t gotten to the point of placing covers over electrical outlets quite yet nor am I pregnant for that matter, but I am noticing an emerging domestic instinct. To me, nesting is watching The Avengers and realizing, Hey I’d take a Mark Ruffalo man over a Chris Evans boy any day. It’s choosing brown rice over white rice at Chipotle because you’re trying to nourish your body or uterus or whatever. It’s signing up for the Costco emails so you can be alerted the next time they have a great deal on a Swiffer. It’s wanting to find a great deal on a Swiffer.
Being a twenty-something female in this decade can be confusing. To quote my soul sister Christina Aguilera: my body is saying let’s go, but my heart is saying no. I want to be independent, to build a career, to be able to drop everything and hit up Vegas for the weekend without my little spawns wondering why mommy is on her YOLO grind again. But at the same time, my body is doing things to remind me that if I were born just a generation or two earlier, I’d be out gathering herbs and berries to feed my family of eight tonight. And as I was reminded by an episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, my egg count peaked at birth so it’s just been downhill from there.
My grandma was married with three kids and counting by my age. And if I were going by my mom’s biological clock, ya’ll would be saving the date for an April wedding. As for me, I will not even consider marriage until I’m 30 (28, if you are an absolute dreamboat or a celebrity on the B-list or above). I still freak the hell out when a guy offers to be my new rock climbing partner (like, why you tryna claim me?). So it feels like I’m being betrayed by my own body every time my eyes start misting at TV commercials that involve weddings, mother-daughter relationships or both. A small part of my brain starts whispering, Hmm… maybe being tied down wouldn’t be so bad.
As most of my friends will be graduating college this May, I’m expecting a slew of marriage proposals to pop up on my Facebook newsfeed from you paired up rascals who were raised in the 1900s or are just really in love or whatever. In fact, some of my friends are already engaged (Yeah you, Autumn). Sometimes this puts me in panic mode and I wonder if I should be making more of an effort with the college dating scene because as they say, the dating pool of eligible bachelors diminishes exponentially after college and I’ll soon have to rely on mutual friends or eHarmony to meet guys who at a minimum, have a job and a car. But then I meet college boys who just wanna hit it and quit it and I’m like, errr… better not.
So for my fellow ladies who respond to the idea of marriage and babies at this age with horror and panic, fret less. You should be able to work on improving yourself and your career without having to worry that in ten years or twenty, you’ll realize you want babies but it will be too late. Because while some of our peers are ready to find eternal bliss, we have something that we can truly rely on to always be there: money food career a pregnancy pact.
If we are still single by the age of 35, we will promise to utilize adoption/artificial insemination and then start a community of women who help each other raise their babies. Just sign on the dotted line.
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