What To Expect When You Aren’t Expecting--But Everyone Else Is.

So young and adorable!

I am in my mid-twenties. I love my mid-twenties! I’m the same age as those kids from Friends and Scrubs when they were first starting out in the shows. Hell, those each lasted almost 10 years and everyone still loves them, in syndicated reruns.

I have friends that are starting to freak out about turning 30 relatively soon. First of all, WHY?? Why is 30 such a big deal? Will I wake up on my 30th birthday in a conservative suit and pantyhose, with my biological clock ticking and a boring job in suburbia, suddenly firmly entrenched as a “grown up”?

No way! My 30s will be awesome. I love getting older. We all do it, it’s inevitable, might as well enjoy the hell out of the process. My mom turns 63 in a few months, and you know what? She loves life. And every year, when my brothers and I tease her about being an old lady, she laughs and says, “Better than the alternative! Which is dead!” Two things: One, this perfectly sums up my mom’s way of life. Live it, enjoy it, and worry less about the number and more about how you feel. Two: Why does she need to name the alternative? Is she afraid that if she doesn’t mention that the alternative is being dead, that I would suddenly have started to think that maybe the alternative to aging is anti-aging, and I would expect her to start getting younger every year on her birthday? What a weirdo. Now you see where I get it from. Apple doesn’t fall far from that weirdo-nerd tree.

But do you know what happens in your mid-to-late twenties? Do you KNOW what starts happening suddenly, out of nowhere, with little to no warning? All your friends get strange and then bedecked in white and with rings and then the BABIES start coming. On purpose! All of a sudden, with no prior warning, babies are popping out all over the place. My best friend in the whole world is pregnant, and I am in awe. My brother has already had 2 kids! I have, at last count, 3 pregnant cousins.

It’s bizarre! I can barely wrap my mind around taking care of myself and possibly the puppy I’m trying to convince my boyfriend we can’t live without (and how have we even survived this long without one, anyway?), and people my own age, whom I love and stuff, are having tiny humans! The whole world has gone mad. MAD, I TELL YOU.

They are out bringing honor to their families and continuing generations and stuff. I am finding and saving pictures I find online that make me laugh. And loving mustaches.

Hahahahahaha!

I love Halloween!

Yep, that gets stuck right in your head.

I do love babies, though. I love little kids. Playing with them, reading to them. I hang out with my niece and nephew on the regular. Partially because I 100% adore them, and partially so that, in spite of my brother and sister-in-law, they can have some sort of cool influence in their tiny, short-statured lives. I fully love kids, and I am great with them, if I do say so myself. I make a conscious effort not to step on kids, even sticky-fingered stranger-children at the mall! I give love and tickles. I just don’t see myself as a child-having adult quite yet.

And I have suddenly realized that I am surrounded by baby-havers. There are so many pregnant women in my life right now! And that would have sounded a lot more awkward if I were a guy.

And what happens to unmarried, childless Jyssica when all the baby-havers are out having babies? I’ll tell you what happens! It is the same thing that happens at every family wedding, baby shower, bris, baby-naming, and Hanukkah party. THE QUESTIONS.

When I was unrepentantly single:
“You think you’re going to want kids someday?”
“So, are you thinking about marriage?”
“What ever happened to that one guy you dated? He liked kids, didn’t he?”

It’s like once your friends and similarly aged cousins start getting married and starting a family, suddenly they turn to you and start wondering why you haven’t jumped on that yet.

Luckily, I not only adore my verbose and ridiculous family, I also have a longterm boyfriend, whom they all like. So, the questions have died off, of late. If I were still the single girl, going to all these baby showers and weddings, they certainly would be asked.

Thank G-d my family loves me and just wants me to be happy. Imagine if they hated me!

Then I would get far more awkward questions, like:
“What are you doing in my house, you creeper?”
“Why are you hiding in my bushes and staring at my basketball hoop in the driveway?”
“Who are you, again? I’m calling the police!”

And then all the drama of Law & Order, and being booked and read my rights and interrogated and stuff would happen, and all my secrets would be out. Thank goodness, it would only last an hour and get wrapped up in a neat little bow. I hope they don’t call any psychiatric witnesses at my trial!

Anyway, despite my lack of kids, I love my best friend, I love my cousins, and I can’t wait to meet everyone’s new kids. Also, I am pretty excited that I get to hang out with my niece and nephew for Thanksgiving and Hanukkah, so twice in two months. They think I am awesome. And really, they are so very right. :)