Photo: Rosan Harmans via Unsplash
“You should marry him,” My grandmother said with emphasis on the word him.
“Just pick someone already!” I could hear her inner voice shouting. I could literally hear the clock ticking from its elevated place on the yellowed kitchen wall.
We were in Cleveland, my hometown where casual brunch conversation was turning to the trials and tribulations of dating. The firm subtext was a half-hearted attempt to meet halfway between where I thought my family wanted me to be and where I actually was.
The truth? I was happy just the way things were. I didn’t need someone else to complete the story.
That was ten years ago.
This past New Year’s I was on a bumpy flight returning from Cleveland to San Francisco, flying away from my family once again.
To be honest, going anyplace else was better than staying. It was far too easy to stick around my hometown and become tempted by the way things used to be.
Before I formed my own opinions.
Before I fully supported my own views.
Before I began exploring the untrodden path of what I wanted my life to be.
It’s in facing those comments, questions, and sidelong looks from those I love where I find myself falling.
In that spirally freefall I reconsider the notion of daring greatly. I consider how nice it would be to just throw up my arms, settle my ass down, and be comfortable already.
Cut to a few weeks later, I’m sitting semi-comfortably on a plane heading back east. This time, it was to the actual Middle East. I booked the ticket two weeks earlier in a last-minute plan to work from our company’s office in Israel. I had my reasons.
Sometimes you just need to throw up your arms and get the hell out. I know it sounds weird, but comfort can also be found in adventure. For me at least, it’s a solid happy-scary place to be.
In many of those moments I want to ask someone “Is that okay?”
I don’t know who I’d ask. I’d be afraid of how much I’d buy into the response.
After all, the inner critic begs to be fed.
My first morning in Tel Aviv I meandered towards the flea markets in Old Jaffa and over to Dr. Shakshuka for their signature dish. I was aware that in this ancient port city it might be strange to be walking around solo. People glanced at the empty space.
“Yes, a table for one.”
I sat in the center of the courtyard. I was the only single one there. Would my experience have been different if I weren’t alone? The men looked curiously and I looked right back from behind my dark sunglasses and smiled.
Tribes are complicated. Mine is scattered and many of its key members don’t even know each other. The trait they all have in common – not one gives a flying fuck about anything formulaic. Everyone is designing a lifestyle factoring in things like impact, culture, community, and intellectual curiosity.
Family by choice.
For most of my life I tried going the other way. At times I could actually feel my soul ache with loneliness. I wanted so badly to get on “the plan” of whatever society seems to be so good at selling.
It wasn’t until I moved from New York to San Francisco that I took a long hard look in the mirror to see what was there all along.
It was fiery courage, energy, and rage – everything that needed to be expressed and was silently waiting to be understood. Being unwilling to settle was a side-effect, concurrent to the desire of being free.
I threw up my arms and sat my ass down. I partnered with myself and began to look inward.
I even reached out to a fertility clinic about becoming an egg donor. If I wasn’t going to use my eggs someone else should, right? I cried the day I submitted the application, and I cried the chilly evening when the rejection letter came saying that I’m too old to donate.
When it comes to being a misfit, at some point the line is drawn. There is no going back.
Coincidentally, this was two days before I flew to Southern California to attend my sister’s baby shower. In conversation, I purposely left out the dating part.
“Brave,” they said. “Independent,” they’d murmur as I walked away.
A part of me couldn’t help but wonder how they were sizing me up. Everyone seemed so normal with families of their own and culturally relatable conversation.
To be honest, I felt more comfortable in Palestine.
Besides, what is growth without risk, and what is risk without the unknown? It’s not possible to make the most of our time by dutifully ticking off boxes. I had no choice but to scribble outside the lines to see what happened.
“We just want you to be happy,” my mom explained.
I don’t think it mattered to her the specific methods upon which I arrived there.
Sometimes it’s working on a fulfilling passion project. Perhaps it’s falling blindly in love with another misfit, or jumping on a plane to travel halfway around the world because it’s simply what makes sense at the time.
On a more nuanced level I’ve learned to invest in myself. I stay curious, aim to build meaningful relationships, and strive to cherish the moment.
It all sounds so simple, but for some reason it took a decade to figure that one out. I’m thrilled that others I know are discovering their happiness and if anything, I can live vicariously through them – that life I chose not to have for myself.
The concept of a biological clock is something we seems to either whisper about quietly to one another or experience loudly. I like to think there’s another clock we should pay attention to, one that measures each of our moments here on Earth – so wild, precious and few. Are we making the most of those?
That’s the clock I want to keep my time to.
“Is that okay?” I occasionally ask myself. “Yes. Yes it is.”