Is there really a choice?

When the path of your life seems to revolve around what the society deems acceptable

There is love all around me , spring is in the air and people have found new loves, I can say for sure because I see my girl-friends looking beautiful with their men. but then I remember, I am in my mid twenties, and I should be scared. I am not a teenage girl who never had to think of marriage or the complexities of this society . I realize I have grown up and all the decisions seem ten fold more complex than they were.

It hurts to know that you have just one path that you are expected to take,not just by the elders in the society but all your girl friends too .Love and men thats the only thing that i should think of right now.

But I am not ready. Not yet . At all.

Marriage is not a choice for a girl like me, its a compulsion. Why you ask me ? Well its the Conservative Indian society , its my parents who love me to death. I can safely say I havent found the love of my life and growing up in the facebook/twitter/share-everything world can be hard when all your friends are getting married /engaged and falling in love. I am happy for all of them , I really am . But it breaks my heart to even think what if… what if I never get married . Is it such a bad thing? Can a girl not make a life of her own. Makes me question my existence , my gender and all the goddamn expectations that come with it.

I love being me,being an Indian girl , having quirky habits ,being my mom-dad’s little baby.I love it that even today I have a million things I want to see and do before my body fails me.But then I look at my age and it scares me. Its just a number you might say , but its a ticking bomb really.

The talks of marriage have already begun , and its progressively going to get worse. I dont want to give in. I want to believe that I am strong . But am I ?

I love my family and I know I will break their heart .

Maybe I will find someone in the future , I just have to keep believing. In love. In life and all its unexpected ways. A younger version of me was more hopeful, now that I have seen so much and I have known some men, I am beginning to give up. And my giving up is directly related to me being emotionally blackmailed in a marriage.

There is no other way for my parents , I am a healthy/pretty/average woman and they have dreams. They have the society , they think there is just one right way.Marriage.

I am expected to live by the rules and I am not ready to do it.

I can almost hear their heartbreak and it breaks mine too.