Me and my boyfriend in my bedroom, 2024

I have always been lonely. I think it stems from being an only child. I dreamed as a little girl of growing up and starting a big family of my own to compensate. There is something so special about that unconditional love that only a family member can provide. And if you aren’t born with family members to fill that void, what option is left besides creating your own? It sounds selfish, and it is selfish. Or maybe it's not, maybe it's human nature. Maybe it's what's propelled the human race to exist as long as it has, and who am I to question hundreds of thousands of years of evolution?

But I’m not ready to start a family now, and I don’t think I’m alone in that. While the pandemic served as a catalyst for some, I think for most in my generation it gave way to a prolonged adolescence. I was 19 when everything flipped upside down, a sophomore in college. And things didn’t really go “back to normal” for me until I was 22. I lost some crucial years of being a teenage idiot to staying holed up in my bedroom playing GamePigeon for social interaction. Now at 23, I still feel like that 19 year old girl finding her place in the world. I have stuffed animals in my bed, boy band posters on my wall. When does one transition from a child to an adult? In my mind it was always a flip of a switch.

But I know time waits for no one. I’ve thought about freezing my eggs. Hell, I’ve thought about donating them– just for the peace of mind that somewhere out there a piece of me will outlive my time on this earth. But would bringing a child into this warming world even be fair? Maybe one day I’ll be so rich I could fly them to mars if the earth exploded.

And all these thoughts are a privilege, I know. Some people don’t have a choice. They wake up one day and are sentenced to motherhood. All I can do is trust that whatever is meant to happen will happen, and search for other modes of fulfillment in this young, ever-changing life of mine. All things come to those who wait, except the most significant, life changing thing. Life is a comedy written by one sadistic comedy writer. But I guess that’s what happens when society progresses faster than our biology.