TAKES TWO TO TANGO
By Michelle Budd
Time. A four-letter word that can give a person hope or knock down their every desire. As a thirty-year-old woman (soon to be thirty-one), every life choice that I make is looked at through a magnifying glass of time. It can be related to my career, my health, or my personal life, but for as long as I can remember, men and women have never been placed on the same timeline. Growing up, I was always told that boys mature later than girls. It was accepted that “boys will be boys” and that what they did was just a part of their being, but when it came to myself and any girl I knew, the expectations were different. We were expected to be independent, grateful, helpful, and kind, without exceptions. As I got older, the ideology of “boys will be boys” stuck, and we girls started dealing with the norms of life and everything that came with them. Now, fast forward to age eighteen, to when I was accepted into college, which was the “normal” next chapter of life. I had a few hiccups, but I graduated with both my bachelor’s degree and my master’s degree in five years. And like everyone else, I went through the trials and tribulations of grades, normal growing pains, and extreme heartaches. After a few years of teaching in various locations, my independence grew, and the ability to care for myself rallied on, but that quickly came under scrutiny as I was doing it on my own, without a partner by my side. After a few moves, a few different jobs, and multiple long-term serious relationships, I find myself being asked at age 30: When are you getting married? and When are you going to have children? 83
