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The Wonder Luster

For Those Of Us Whose Dreams Won't Die Between 17 and 65.

Life is wondrous! Feed your lust for life with the tools & inspiration to help make it a great one.

Jet Lagged & Confused: Thoughts On Relationships, Motherhood (Or Not) & Life Over 30

Life Over 30 | February 26, 2018

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Going to Paris was a much anticipated trip that I had put at the top of my bucket list for well over two years.  When I spotted an incredible deal after a challenging year of hardcore adulting, I was ready to fly and booked what could have been seen as random trip, but in reality was anything but. Save and wait to pounce. 

Winter in Paris? Sure.  Book that bad boy and let’s get out of dodge for a bit.  Oh my gawwwd, I can finally do that now.

Being over 30 has its perks- namely, having a stable job and paid off student loans along with a really solid credit score so you can travel hack the trips you dreamed about in your 20’s.  

It also has its fare share of new problems you would never have considered in your 20’s.  Alcohol doesn’t metabolize quite as well. Property taxes are a thing now.  You finally know what an escrow account is for and it sucks just as much as you figured it would.  People start to ask when you’re going to have kids with less of your typical expectant optimism and instead, now wonder what’s wrong with you.


Heck, you even begin to ask yourself.


This is precisely what happened when the fella and I went to Paris.  Many of the “what next” questions began to bubble to the surface right before we left, and egged on with the disorienting nature of jet lag, some red wine and a day surrounded by small tikes at Disneyland Paris, and you find yourself crying into your beer at last call in of all places, a Disney hotel bar. 

Doing great here folks.

After a very jet lagged but happy day, literally surrounded by the very questions we were asking ourselves in quite literal form, dressed up as adorable little Elsas and Jack Sparrows- it was time for a meltdown of Chernobyl proportions. And no, the adorable little cosplayers were not the ones having a sob fest at Disney, it was me. 

I’m over 30, and I’m very happy.  The anxiety of being a 20-something in the social media age has waned.

Keeping up with the polished people I follow on social media, having it all and looking great on Instagram no longer appeals to me. Yet of course, now you get a new set of Joneses to keep up with- often masked with a lot more baggage and a lot more work.

You trade a perfect mani and bathroom selfies for the perfect “6 month photos” (babies not boyfriends) and a wondrously staged front porch fit for Real Simple Magazine.

I was engaged at 28, and since that didn’t go as planned, being married is now off my bucket list.  After wading through those murky waters of humiliation and disappointment, I’ve come to the other side of feeling quite tickled about it.

I’m FREE and my ex is free of me too (I mean, I have come to realize that’s what he wanted all along).  Plus, it isn’t lost on me that I’m born at one of the best times in life for a woman to be alive.  I can make my own choices.

 

We live in the #MeToo era and are having a lot of hard conversations about the American Dream, access, and racial issues.  It’s not easy, but compare now to the 1960’s and is anyone else celebrating that too?  It’s amazing.

Paid employment.  My own credit line.  The ability to own property.  Birth control.  The ability to live in sin with the man of my choice. 

The opportunity to get the milk for free without having to buy the cow, and being able to joke about who the cow is.  I’m not longer the default “cow” who must get someone to buy her milk and thus justify her very existence.

In short, I relish in the ability to be free of having to acquire those things through the traditional channels.  Essentially, freeing myself and other women of the necessity of man’s permission to get them.  A husband is not a ticket to ride any longer, yay!

 

 

So, back to booking a trip to Paris on what seemingly random February. 

It wasn’t random, I planned for this for a long time and saved for it too- because I CAN.

 

When the opportunity to get a nearly direct flight from Texas came along for only $660, you bet I snatched it up.

So, what happens when you book a trip to Paris and are relishing the fact that you finally have the freedom to do so?  You start worrying about losing it. 

At 30, you realize that everyone racing ahead on the path of pursuit isn’t really ahead they’re just making different choices- you let go of the FOMO.  That’s where I’m at, but of course, consolidating that with a partner at this age can be really, really challenging.

image1

Me on top of the snow mountain at Disneyland Paris.
It took 31 years, but I think I’m finally ready for a successful career in modeling.

Lasting love is a series of compromises, and for two independent people who are pretty smitten with each other, it can be tough to know what compromises to make.  Are we growing in the right direction, together?

When we started dating, we toyed with the idea of having kids together.  We had names picked out.  It was “NRE”- new relationship energy to the max.  I fell ass over teacup for this guy, and when you’re tripping on dopamine and serotonin (you know, those real good, kick your ass bonding chemicals you get when falling for someone), time seems to stretch out.  Everything is just so wonderful and do-able at the moment.  The world is your oyster.  Thanks, hormones. 

We’ve been riding high for three years (I think? Not really counting) and as I love drunkenly soar over the clouds, I still wonder where we’re headed.  I respect him and myself enough to wonder.

 

Right before the trip, I asked in one of my favorite personal finance/ financial independence Facebook groups  how one can evaluate if they’re ready to get married, financially and personally.


What does it change legally?  How do you decide where to compromise or what to combine? 

I was told by a small handful of really unhelpful people that “if you even have you ask, then marriage isn’t for you.”

Well, damn.  I didn’t want to join your stupid club anyway. 

I kid, it’s not a stupid club, but it certainly didn’t help me evaluate where I wanted to steer this ship, or even when.  To put a bow on that, I did receive some somewhat more helpful answers, but nothing particularly concrete.

Like, why can’t anyone tell me straight up how marriage legally changes things, or share if they had a prenup and why?
Why does it have to be a blind love and trust discussion? Can’t we think and talk critically like we would with all other matters?

Surely when someone asks about the benefits and costs of private school for their kids, nobody tells them that if they have to “even ask” they don’t love their kids.  That’s friggin’ bonkers.

Just don’t be an asshole.  It shouldn’t be an off-limits question.  It shouldn’t be the case, yet marriage seems taboo to talk about for anyone who has trepidation or curiosity on what it really means on paper.  If you ask questions, you aren’t in love or you have ulterior motives.  What stupidity.

Ask now, or ask a divorce lawyer, your choice- but I’d like to think that if you ask now, you may not need the divorce lawyer. But yet, don’t ask, don’t tell seems to be a cultural myth we hold dear.

That being said, I totally took away something that’s stuck with me.  Society tells us that if you have to ask if you should be married or you should have kids, you probably shouldn’t.  No fence straddling here, you declare and go with it.  Get in, loser. 

So, from Paris, after a few drinks and severely jetlagged, I came clean about my worries to my significant other and we broke up in the sloppiest, most disoriented way possible.

No, for reals.  Beer tears were had. 2 a.m. Paris.  Great vacation I planned, eh?

I am in no rush to get married or have kids, but the idea that I just didn’t just know one way or the other apparently rattled my cage pretty good.  Surely, we were too different.  Surely, we weren’t growing together. 

Surely his hope for having a legacy, and my disregard for the concept of crafting one solely via children would never change.  Surely, we had to have the answers right the frick now.

(Ironically, being totally exhausted and crying to your S.O. about kids is sort of good practice for how it feels right? Feel free to comment below).

In sum, we had to be doomed.

Maybe being weirdly disoriented and being jet lagged in a foreign land is not the best way to examine the next chapter of your life. But it worked for me...Us just hours before beer/jet lag meltdown 2018.

Then, because we literally had no choice but to enjoy the trip, or don’t and waste  it all- we spent nearly a week in Paris and then some meandering days in the beautiful mediterranean city of Barcelona. 

Nobody should ever talk about deep things on vacation while your body is in full mutiny mode.

Maybe being weirdly disoriented and running on terrible jet lag in a foreign land is not the best way to examine the next chapter of your life.  It can though, be the best way to address nagging doubts and deep concerns if you wait a few days.  Travel helps you get the lead out. It helps you examine things, slow down and change the stage to help draw out what’s underneath the day to day and get to the nitty gritty.


Before you decide to hit the doomsday button- get a good night’s rest and then proceed to see some 500+ year old world heritage sites to completely put you in your place of how stupid your life’s silly little dramas are.

You, much like humanity, can do so much.  Look at a few 400 year old castles built without cranes and tell me you can’t figure out how to work together as a couple to sort the minutiae of your relationship out.

 

ACS_0011This was an oyster in Barcelona.  OMG tapas are no joke y’all.  We partied hearty. 

Of course, this took a day or two to realize.  I ate a steady diet of charcuterie boards and red wine.  Then, we consumed a lots of tapas that were picked based on the names alone or by pointing to pictures on a menu because we don’t speak Cataloynian.  I couldn’t keep track of how much I’d spent on food, but knew that surely, it was a good sum.

(Answer: I spent $1300 total on our trip, including transportation and a few gifts to bring home.  The rest was paid for on travel rewards points.)

We got lost. We got found.  We lost track of the days and couldn’t remember timelines.  We had a gay ol’ time. 

But yet, I still have thoughts. 

I like being able to book trips. I finally have a passport and the ability to use it. I like being able to dream.

I don’t know how we wouldn’t manage kids without having families nearby to support us. 

Women still disproportionately do the child raising and care even while balancing full time jobs. The decision of “who would stay home if the kids needed us,” is still not a debate between couples. It’s never even questioned who stays home and the lack of equanimity concerns me.

I still have worries about childbirth after seeing several that friends nearly died during labor (Yes, several.  Despite normal, healthy pregnancies) and yes, I’m scared about what it would do to my body.

I’m not ready to get over the stigma attached to motherhood, I want to fight and change it.  Yes, I honestly worry that even participating in it is complacency. I struggle with that.

I struggle with the idea that I would go through nine months of pregnancy and 18 years of childrearing and wonder how involved I can be if I work full time at a traditional job.  Other moms laudably make it work, can or should I? Is there another way?

I still feel strongly that I want to be a mother to adopted children.  I still rally against the idea that I need to have “a few of my own” to really know what motherhood is like or that  having a biological child somehow means my legacy lives on. 

 

That nature is superior to nurture when the contrary is the only thing I feel explains my very self.  This point probably upsets me the most out of all of them. Children aren’t just made, they’re chosen. Bonds aren’t natural, they’re nurtured.

I’m not going to apologize for wanting motherhood on contrarian terms, though I’m sad my desire to  adopt is considered “less than” or contrarian in the first place.

Motherhood is brave, brave love.  I already feel protective of the child that’s not even real to me yet, but I know will come to me of means other than my own.  Some things I can’t clearly explain, but I will not apologize for them anymore.  All the “you don’t know love until it’s YOURS” (you know what they’re implying) can officially piss off.

 

 

So, Paris.  It was a lot more than just tours and train rides.  It was some challenging soul searching.

Travel does that to you.   It shakes up your snow globe in ways you wouldn’t expect.  Consider me shook.

 

I come back feeling renewed and I faced some demons down with my partner. I also put some wiggle room in the self-assigned timelines I’d given myself.  I’m giving myself breathing room to continue exploring how I feel.  I’m giving myself forgiveness for having lingering questions and permission not to answer them just yet.


I’m not sure what our goals will be together, but for now we are committed to a forward motion that begs for a lot of soul searching on both of our parts.  We are working to some short term goals with our careers, working towards financial independence and saving for our next trip. 

We are eager to see the world.  We are still very much in love.  We are letting go of arbitrary timelines because of our age and time spent together as a metric for the next step.  We are fortunate enough to take our time in getting to the next stage and I can breathe now that I’m allowing myself to do so. 

I also give my permission to be myself and bring my whole self to the conversation instead of the baggage of “shoulds.”  I have full permission to explore what got me here, and where I’m going.  I give myself the grace of self acceptance and forgiveness when I need to slow down and embrace this chapter before rushing on to the next one.  

I feel like I’ve just become this woman.  I’m not ready to give her up yet. I want to see who she becomes in her own time.

6 Comments

Life is wondrous! Feed your lust for life with the tools & inspiration to help make it a great one.

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Comments

  1. Whitney says

    February 26, 2018 at 5:05 pm

    Wow! I’ve already messaged you in every form available except smoke-signaling (because fire codes, ugh!)…WOW!

    I’m glad that you are rolling with the emotional punches and letting go of “The Shoulds”. The Shoulds are complete assholes and no one likes them, but they show up anyways. Is there a way to add something to your home security system to block The Shoulds? If not, then we need to make one and we will be billionaires!

    Love you!!!!!!!!

    Reply
  2. Lora says

    February 27, 2018 at 4:36 pm

    I don’t know why people feel they need to rush into these decisions. If you’re not ready, you’re not ready. People change over time, just because you hadn’t made up your mind in the first five minutes of a relationship that doesn’t mean it’s not a good thing or you’re not going to work out.

    People need to chill. Kids aren’t something you should rush into.

    Reply
    • shannyn says

      February 28, 2018 at 1:33 pm

      Thanks for commenting Lora! Amen!

      Reply
  3. Melissa says

    February 28, 2018 at 3:45 am

    Shannyn omg I love and needed this post!! I think I know which FB group you’re referring to but I don’t feel like I saw it! I’ve been a huge fan of yours for years (started reading Frugal Beautiful when you were engaged, actually!) and I’m the same exact age as you…

    And if I feel 100% the same as you do!! Which is weird, because (at least for me) it’s not a “concrete feeling.” It’s like that song, should I stay or should I go? I’m 31 this year, and I still don’t have student loan debt paid off… and probably won’t for a few years (literally tens of thousands in debt, thanks master’s degree).

    However, I CAN pay my bills and I DO have a Paris Hipmunk round trip flight alert set (booooo to no good cheap flights out of Phoenix, AZ! :() and I WANT to travel and move and buy a house and buy a rental and run my own business LIKE A BOSS.

    I don’t know where kids fit in there. My husband is pretty sure he doesn’t want them. He’s also on board with every single plan (just not last minute travel… yet…) that I have. So this should be fine and good, right? Except… I don’t know. Kids seem kinda fun. But expensive. And we have no family at all to help us (too old, no siblings, no cousins, no aunts/uncles – nada!) And I have debt and will have debt til I’m out of my child-bearing years. But like, they’re cute and I’m 80% sure I’d be a dope ass Mom who would teach her kid to be thoughtful, empathetic, and curious. But maybe I wouldn’t or maybe they’d inherit something awful and terrible we didn’t know about in our genes.

    Plus, I too have had friends who have went through some SHIT with their pregnancies – near-death (and this woman was WAY healthier than I am!), diabetes, infertility then scary pregnancy stuff, bed rest, etc. I do not have the constitution to deal with bugs let alone life-threatening real stuff.

    So… I don’t know about anything. But I do know: literally there’s no reason EXCEPT for going to the hospital that marriage has been worth it. Like, I’ve paid more in taxes since we’ve been married (marriage penalty fo’ real when you don’t have kids!) And I disliked changing my name – that shiz was expensive and annoying. (I didn’t have to change my name it was a personal choice but NEVER AGAIN).

    Literally the only reason to get married is that if your boyfriend/person/human gets into a terrible car accident and *decisions* need to be made, it falls to you and not their family. In most cases you get there first, so it makes sense you’d want to take action *as a spouse*.

    My aunt was “only” dating my now-uncle when he had a terrible accident, and they wouldn’t let her even see him which she arrived at the hospital because she “wasn’t family.” Don’t know if that’s true everywhere or if they were just jerks but… for that reason alone was good enough for me to get married. Plus now it makes it harder for him to divorce me. Just kidding! 😉

    Reply
    • shannyn says

      February 28, 2018 at 1:27 pm

      Melissa, so good to hear from you!! Your comment=gold, thank you for taking the time to write it (few people comment anymore!)

      You totally would be a dope ass mom! I am on board with spending time with kids to get used to the idea personally…my SO and I haven’t had a ton of exposure to taking care of kids. I took some child development classes and did some babysitting but he hasn’t. I sometimes remind him when we’re out at dinner, “Okay, now we got our meals, you’ll need to cut up the kid’s meal at this point, feed them while you’re eating…take them to the bathroom, wipe up their chin. It’s never as simple as just eating anymore when you’re a parent to a young kid, so enjoy it now!” Because having a kid changes even the littlest of things- getting ready to go to the grocery store, getting ready in the morning, bed time, going out to eat or having dinner at home, down time after work. Not saying it’s bad, but it’s different, and while most people say “Ya, I know kids are a lot of work!” I’m like “but, do you? It changes your whole routine on everything for 20+ years” so while I’m not anti-kid, I’m all for really getting familiar with it to be sure.

      I’m hoping to volunteer with foster kids soon, and when the fella has less hours with work (right now he’s pushing 70-80 hours a week every single week, we need to make changes) we can explore the kids idea together. I want to be confident he’s not just wanting the idea of kids without the sniffle wiping, nightmare having, late night with coughing, up at 6am every Saturday portions of it too…hard, but rewarding, just want to be SUPER super sure, ya know? It’s a beautiful, rewarding but hard slog…so why not test drive.

      You are right, pregnancy and childbirth is NO JOKE yet most people don’t talk about it. I’ve had several friends tell me afterwards that even though they nearly died during labor or had really really hard pregnancies with rashes, severe back pain and bedrest, etc…they didn’t talk about it because they didn’t want to distract from the baby or look like a bad mom for complaining..talk about baggage, man we put a lot of pressure on moms to be perfect!

      I hear you on the end of life decisions stuff when it comes to getting married. In the state of Texas, if you live together and you say you’re married, you’re married. Common law is totally bonkers…I sometimes joke with my SO that “today I call you husband,” just to mess with him since it’s such a bonkers loophole in the law in our state… if it were only that easy! ha!

      Reply
      • Melissa says

        February 28, 2018 at 3:35 pm

        Yeah, what’s up with the not commenting anymore? I’m in another Facebook group and people were complaining that “other bloggers comment on our blogs but that’s just because they want backlinks!” No, sometimes other bloggers are people too who just want to comment! :-/ It makes me sad how commenting is totally not a thing anymore – I guess I’m an old blogger now!

        The foster kid idea is WONDERFUL! We have some family friends who fostered children (they’re my parents friends, so they’re very old now) while I was growing up and their house was always a lot of fun with several kids (they usually took in siblings).

        But foster kids are so much work – maybe even more than biological kids, because sometimes they come with some pretty hard life stories. I’m sure you’re 100% aware of those stories, but it’s just something that… wow. Not sure I could handle it (mostly because I’d be so angry at the bio-moms and dads that treated their kids so horribly…)

        Bright side, if you guys like and take to fostering well, it should be a really good sign you’d both make excellent parents! I feel for your fella – I’ve spent basically 0 time with kids (I babysat once, it went terribly, I was never asked back :-0). It will be an adjustment for him, but if you’re both on board for fostering, I feel like that’s a good sign. Half of being a good parent is being enthusiastic and willing to learn – right? I thought I saw some study that said half (or more?) of a child’s success just depends on if they have a stable, loving adult in their lives. Sounds about right.

        Hope you always continue to blog – it’s so reassuring to see people in these in-between life stages. My friends all seem to have everything figured out, or they’re in different stages (kids, picket fence, blah blah or still hella single and partying). No one in my friend group is really where I am: still wanting to travel and see the world, but married and also being like “oh snap do I need to have a kid before my eggs die of old age? Do I care if I never have kids?” It sometimes seems like NOT wanting kids is taboo!

        Texas sounds awesome in that regard! I think Arizona actually has common law too – like if you’ve been together for 10 years, it’s a “common law” marriage. I just didn’t want to try that out, since my husband and I hope to move to at least one other state before really “settling down.” I was also tired of picking up my dog from day care and being like, “yes, she’s Molly Berry, I’m Melissa H… yes… I know… not the same last name… still her Dog Mom…” lol 🙂

        Reply

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