Girl's night yesterday with my girlfriends who I adore. Saw a movie, ate dinner and drank too much wine. Doesn't happen often because B & I are out of town most weekends.
Discussions last night got me thinking today. It seems to always turn to the same thing. B & I will one day have children and B will have to give up the band and his crazy lifestyle to become yet another sheep in the neverending pasture of people who give up their dreams for conformity.
These are their ideas, not mine. I continue to state and re-state that no, we'll find a different way of doing it. B's been with the band for going on a decade now (I think) and I can't imagine him not doing music in some shape. I want him to stay in music and do what he loves. Even if we have kids and embrace the American "dream" and all of that.
Even if we don't.
They poopoo my ideas. "You can't raise a child alone. He can't be gone every weekend. "
I call us selfish. We are in our 30's with no kids. A dog, yes, but even Mozart would admit he's not an infant. Perhaps we are selfish. Maybe we should grow up and stop staying out all hours of the night and sleeping until 3 in the afternoon. Maybe eating cheesecake straight out of the box isn't such a good idea. But what if it was my lifelong dream to eat cheesecake straight out of the box? Is it so hurtful that my love would tell me to stop? Force me to give up some semblance of happiness for the greater good? Or what we're told is the greater good. Who says we can't eat cheesecake straight out of the box or stay up until 4 in the morning?
Who makes these rules?
My bigger question is when do we give up our dreams? And why? Because someone tells us to or because we get tired of chasing them? How can you love someone and at the same time tell them to give up what makes them happy?
I can't imagine what I'd do if B told me I couldn't finish my graduate degree because we need to start our family. Yes I tell him to take the trash out every night and yes we're gone too much and our apartment looks like a pigsty because of it. But it's our pigsty. And our trash.
And our cheesecake - that we're going to continue to eat straight out of the box.
I hate the "rules" of life. I can't stand them in a way. I think that when you guys have kids Ben doesn't have to give up anything. Maybe you guys can tweak your lifestyles and adapt, but giving up what you love? Nah. You can do it and make up your OWN rules along the way!
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