Peace, Love, and Jeggings

Mood:  pensive


I don't usually blog first thing in the morning, unless I have something of major importance to say.  And I don't.  It's just that since I got home last night I've been thinking about something, and I need to get it out.


As I was doing the dishes/making dinner...and then later going through my face cleansing ritual...I kept thinking about Will & Grace and Friends and Scrubs and Sex and The City and how those shows portrayed older (slightly) people attempting to figure out life, and perhaps most important love and relationships.  And when I say older I simply mean my age, the 20something.  Who inevitably deals with the 30th birthday somewhere during the shows run.  Or...the 35th.  Whatever.  Anyway, as these are the shows that I watch to comfort myself I can't help but think of how modern culture holds the ideals and beliefs of these shows to be slightly antiquated.  Or is it just Iowa?


Hear me out.  Every woman I know that is my age in Iowa is either married, married with children, separated, or divorced.  Or some random combination of the above.  If they don't fit that, they are engaged.  Most of the women I know that are younger than me fit this too.  In fact...all of them do.  And I keep reading that society is making a swing towards younger marriages again.  Women are no longer putting careers ahead of romance.  Men are no longer wanting to be George Clooney.  People are looking to settle down and have the family, then figure the rest out.  Which is backwards from everything I've learned about modern culture since high school.  You get your education, you work, you live, you figure yourself out THEN you add to your life.  But it's all very egocentric until that point.

So maybe the shows aren't dated, but I am?  I don't know.  I do know that this year I will be 27.  Which I know in the grand scheme of things isn't old, but let's face it, I'm 3 years away from 30 then.  And once you're past 21 a year is NOT, in fact, a lifetime.  So am I the modern 20something?  Or am I the outdated model who worshiped Carrie Bradshaw, but was slightly younger than the average viewer?


Or are all modern 20somethings actually dated?  Aren't we all kind of just like our parents?  Young versions of them, perhaps with more education, perhaps with more money, perhaps with more independence...but aren't we SOME part of them?  I maintain that we are.  And that the modern 20something is a myth that is either trying to scare me into marriage or education OR convince me I can have "it all" and carry a baby and a Chanel at the same time.  Dream on.

Honestly I think this "modern" 20something is kinda crap.  Look, our parents experimented with drugs and sexuality.  Maybe it wasn't as accepted...but most of them did at some point.  And at the end of the day, they were just confused 20somethings running around, chasing the job, the car, the partner.  And all they wanted was to be happy.  Isn't that all we want too?  To find that person that loves us despite our flaws, and our 20 minute face washing routine.  To have a career that you're proud of, and hopefully somebody to cheer you on?  I think so.  


I think the "modern 20something" is still yesterday's 20something...we just do it all in jeggings.

PS - there may or may not be another blog later today...just really needed to get that out there