A Royal Pain In The Solar Plexus

I was tomboyish when I was younger. I think that being tomboyish is the most attractive option to females who are far from being attractive, the sort who throws up their ungraceful hands early and say "If I can't get a boy, I'll be a boy." They'll harbor a secret wish in their hearts. They'll hope (sometimes unaware) that being boyish will show other boys that they have something in common and thus, desirable. They'll snort at love, marriage, and children but if the opportunity to have all these in one swoon comes up they will take it and not let go until it stops biting and kicking. 

Love for me used to be optional; it's there, and so what? I can get a good dose of love in books minus all the hassle. This used to be so easy to say—everything is so easy to say when you don't know what you're talking about, after all. Also, I wasn't too excited about marriage. I've heard too many marriage horror stories from my mom ("Wag kang gagaya kay blah blah, binubugbog siya ng asawa niyang lasenggero. Nabuntis kasi kaya nag-asawa ng maaga. Naku, kawawa naman.") to be excited about marriage. My mom is a dogmatic, single-minded human being who bores things in you and makes sure that you never forget them. It's all done in the name of love, of course, and I can't really blame her. 

And children. Ahh, children. I can tick off a lot of reasons why not to have children, but I can sort them into two categories for you. One, it's painful to have them. It doesn't matter if the anesthesia kills the pain of childbirth before it even started, but what about the whole period of gestation? They say it's like carrying a bowling bowl every step of the way. I did bowling for PE this year and I'll tell you that I can't grab an eight-pound bowl without breaking a sweat. And what about after the birth? Won't the vagina or the abdomen of the ex-pregnant woman hurt like hell? That is, unless she's so souped up on dope she doesn't realize that the bulge is gone for the next week or so.

Children require tons of love and attention. Maybe this would stop mattering after all the trials and tribulations of childbirth, after which the realization that this kid is your flesh and blood evolves into overwhelming, eternal love. Maybe this is one of the countless other times when I don't know what I'm talking about again. But this is how I feel about children right now: they're a royal pain in the solar plexus.

I am with a man whomI love very much and who apparently feels the same way. He's six years older than I am, at that age when males start to think about settling down and all that jazz. I am at that age when these things are farthest from my mind. I mean, come on, I have everything to look forward to and experience and "everything" is getting nearer now that I'm just a year from graduating. I'm impatient but marriage and kids are not in the Things To Be Impatient About List. 

But what the hell.