Today, I came across the blog that I once thought I would be writing. A disenchanted twenty-something moved to the big city with aspirations of a successful journalism career. It's a wonderful read - absolutely delicious. She writes with beautiful eloquence, and makes even the mundane details of living as a single girl in the city seem riveting.
And yet, it struck me as sort of sad.
It's written in the voice of my generation that teeters on melodramatic - the generation of college girls who watched Sex and the City and thought it was truly how life was supposed to be. City life -filled with Sunday brunches and late night wine bars and cosmos and fabulousness. And other simpler things, like wandering through the farmers market, grabbing fresh food to cook up on your miniature stove before curling up alone on a Friday night in a terry cloth robe, watching mice scamper across the floor while typing away on your laptop.
And sipping wine. Lots of sipping of wine.
There's certainly a romance to it all.
And so, I have to wonder, did it strike me as sad because it’s the sort of casual existence I once dreamt that I would be living? Working at important places, meeting famous people, living in a city filled with art and culture and 24 hour restaurants, stores, hot spots... Or is it that I feel sad because it just seems so lonely (from my perspective now) - to be struggling for something so empty. Sharing an apartment with mice. Watching rich people act out their rich lives on the rooftops of uptown apartments. Crying over Food Network. Perhaps her writing is so vivid that I'm actually feeling for her - the sad ache of making it on your own.
Something I didn’t do. I meant to...but then there was love...and then marriage, and we all know what comes next. He’ll be nine months next week.
It’s a choice; the path taken, the path declined.
I'll probably still read the blog with appreciation. Maybe sometimes with a dash of bitterness - or a little sadness - and always with wonder; wondering how my life might have been different, had I chosen to be the make-up-less girl watching mice skitter across my apartment floor while typing to an invisible audience of internet strangers, rather than being a fulltime wife and mom and office slave and grad student - stealing moments from work and my husband to type away here - lying and calling it school work whenever someone peers over my shoulder.
But, then I'll turn off the computer and kiss my son goodnight...and fall asleep beside the love of my life. With no regrets.
And yet, it struck me as sort of sad.
It's written in the voice of my generation that teeters on melodramatic - the generation of college girls who watched Sex and the City and thought it was truly how life was supposed to be. City life -filled with Sunday brunches and late night wine bars and cosmos and fabulousness. And other simpler things, like wandering through the farmers market, grabbing fresh food to cook up on your miniature stove before curling up alone on a Friday night in a terry cloth robe, watching mice scamper across the floor while typing away on your laptop.
And sipping wine. Lots of sipping of wine.
There's certainly a romance to it all.
And so, I have to wonder, did it strike me as sad because it’s the sort of casual existence I once dreamt that I would be living? Working at important places, meeting famous people, living in a city filled with art and culture and 24 hour restaurants, stores, hot spots... Or is it that I feel sad because it just seems so lonely (from my perspective now) - to be struggling for something so empty. Sharing an apartment with mice. Watching rich people act out their rich lives on the rooftops of uptown apartments. Crying over Food Network. Perhaps her writing is so vivid that I'm actually feeling for her - the sad ache of making it on your own.
Something I didn’t do. I meant to...but then there was love...and then marriage, and we all know what comes next. He’ll be nine months next week.
It’s a choice; the path taken, the path declined.
I'll probably still read the blog with appreciation. Maybe sometimes with a dash of bitterness - or a little sadness - and always with wonder; wondering how my life might have been different, had I chosen to be the make-up-less girl watching mice skitter across my apartment floor while typing to an invisible audience of internet strangers, rather than being a fulltime wife and mom and office slave and grad student - stealing moments from work and my husband to type away here - lying and calling it school work whenever someone peers over my shoulder.
But, then I'll turn off the computer and kiss my son goodnight...and fall asleep beside the love of my life. With no regrets.
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