The Biggest Deal Ever

Once upon a time, four years ago, a variety of young people I'll call "classmates" went on an exodus across the country. Some of them moved to west coast states, some of them moved to southern states, and some of them even moved outside the US (!). They have been known to go not only a full week without running into their middle school gym teacher at Best Buy, some of them have even gone a full month. And not just without seeing former gym teachers, without seeing any former teachers! It seems like a totally outrageous society full of freewheeling lunatics, and it's certainly horrified me to the core, but bearing those facts in mind, it's kind of confounding to me that moving two hours away from my "hometown" at the tender age of 21-and-a-half is the biggest fucking deal ever. I don't understand! It doesn't make sense! I can't even fathom why people think it's so crazy and spontaneous when you factor in that EVERYONE ELSE DID IT FOUR YEARS AGO. For some reason "18 Yr Old Leaves Home" translates to "Leaving the Nest" and "21 Yr Old Leaves Home" translates to "Blatant Suicide Mission." And the craziest part is, this isn't even my hometown. I absolutely hated Pennsylvania for the first six years I lived here, AND I HAVE ONLY LIVED HERE TWELVE YEARS, so those are not favorable stats. I have nothing in common with anyone in Centre County. Like literally nothing. It took three years just for the weird kids to warm up to me. And my parents kept telling me to try to make more friends. It didn't happen - can I please stop now? How long do I have to pretend to care about JoePa before we can just call this a failed experiment? At this point it's just embarrassing for both of us. I feel like that kid who's forced to take violin lessons for ten years who absolutely hates it and never gets better, except for me it's Normal Human lessons. I'm just not cut out for this quiet desperation thing. If I'm going to be a freak, I'd rather just embrace it and live somewhere where I can blend in enough to be a Semi-Freak than have to live with 40,000 normal identical people and be an Ultra Mega Freak.

Tattoos/Childbirth

I like tattoos. I like people who have tattoos, I like looking at tattoos, and I like obtaining tattoos. Last year, after much deliberation and Flickr searches, I decided to get a tattoo of a butterfly. I got it on an area of my body that many communities refer to as "the love handle." I chose this area because it makes the butterfly seem like it's floating - as opposed to an area like the shoulder, where it would seem like the butterfly was "resting" on a surface. I show it to people all the time, and aside from the standard "what does it mean? / that must have hurt!" I always get the exact same inappropriate, presumptuous, stock response: OH MAN! JUST WAIT TILL UR PREGNANT! THAT THING GUNNA STRETCH LOL.

No one ever asks if I'm going to have kids. (I'm not.) No one even says "if you give birth," it's always "when you give birth." It's like women have their own Death 2.0 - like we all have to face the inevitability that we will one day produce offspring. It's just an innate fact of being female - we all desire children.

I'm never going to have kids - ever. I'm going to get a tubular litigation as soon as I have a real job and can pay for it. The only future children I will ever have will be adopted. And I don't even want to get married until I'm at least 32, so that means the possibility of kids are well over ten years in the future. I'm sorry that I'm not living The Central PA Dream of finding a fiance by the time I graduate college. The only person I've actually dated in college is currently under house arrest. (I guess he'll be in charge of the dishes, huh?) Everyone I know keeps getting engaged and talking about how they're ready to settle down and share their life. I don't want to share my life - I barely even got to use it yet.

By the way, I heard this exact same reaction 1,000 times when I first got my belly button pierced. YOU'LL HAVE TO TAKE IT OUT WHEN YOU HAVE KIDS LOL. Even if I wanted kids, that would be a stupid reason to not get it pierced. What if I save my precious vessel for five years in the anticipation of childbirth and then find out I'm infertile? What if I am fertile, and then get ovarian cancer and become infertile? What if I am fertile, do get pregnant, and then die choking on a grape? (It happens!) Why the fuck should I care if I might have to take a piercing out in ten years? More importantly, why do you, A TOTAL STRANGER, care if I might have to take a piercing out in ten years? I might have to do a lot of things, that doesn't mean I'm going to let my entire life orbit around a single arbitrary future possibility.