Get a Life

Recently, in a telephone conversation with my father, he and I were discussing my troubles and trials with my kids. At some point he said, "Wouldn't you like to focus more on your social life . . . I mean, you spend so much time doing kid things . . . wouldn't you like to have more of a social life?"

Now, that may sound kind of harsh, but that's my dad's way of telling me he loves me and wants me to be happy. He knows I have a good social life (that doesn't just involve kids) and he really isn't telling me to get a life. How do I know, you ask? Well, this is how the message is to be decoded:

social life = boyfriend/husband

Try as he might to be a forward-thinking liberal renaissance man, the fact of the matter is that my father was born in 1940. Some of those traditional ideals about marriage, family, and children are still present in the back of his brain. He "gets" me in the broad sense of the word. He understands that happiness is not always traditional and that I am simply making my own happiness. He has several life-long friends who have not lived traditional lives for various reasons and he gets that they are happy with the lives they chose to live.

But his understanding of the broader world becomes somewhat hazy when he thinks of my life, his only daughter's life. He wants everything for me and, to him, everything includes a husband. His life followed the traditional path of educated professionals: college, marriage, graduate school, kids, career advancement, older kids, career advancement, college kids, top of career, fulfilling adult life with adult children, grandchildren.

When he is being objective, he gets that my path is simply getting it done in a different order. Marriage is kind of floating above the swirl of the rest of my life, waiting I hope, for when it is the right time. I did everything else in the right order, at the right time, I just didn't get married as expected. Sure, I had the opportunity and chose not to take it, but I shudder when I think of the result of my near-marriage. Notice there is no "divorce" step in my father's perfect life timeline? Well, that's where I would have ended up if I had gotten married when asked.

The truth of the matter is . . . I can get married anytime. Age, income, life-experience, or intelligence are not prerequisites to marriage (maybe they should be, but that is another post). On the other hand, there are prerequisites to the other things on the list. I couldn't wait forever to be a mother. I couldn't sit around picking my nose unemployed. So, I took charge of my life.

But I can't exactly do that on the marriage front. I can't just go to the yellow pages and look up "Husband," make the call and pay the shipping and handling. I can't apply for admittance to the Husband program at three different schools. If I wanted to get married simply for the sake of being married, I would have married the guy who asked.

I have a life. My dad knows I have a life. But that doesn't mean he can't hope for more. And the same is true for me.