Is 20-years-old… OLD?

January 16, 2008

There has never been a dull moment in my life. I was never a “party girl,” but I did have fun. I am still having fun. I have fun in a way I never expected. I am a mother, to a beautiful baby girl that brings so much joy into my life, any party ever could. I never needed to know what was going on any particular night, because I was positive it would be a blast, and that I would be partaking in it. Although, that was when I was 14, 15, 16-years-old, and I am now 22. You’d think that I am still having a blast every night, and partying until the cows come home. Nowadays, I am not partying until the cows come home; I am waiting for the man in my life to bring home money from his job so that I can go straight to the store for milk.

In a nutshell, I am a mother of a 15-month-old girl, a girlfriend, a student, and a housekeeper. I don’t have too many friends any more, and the ones I do have, are also mothers. Except for one, and she lives over the border into Pennsylvania, so we don’t see each other too often. Somehow though, other mothers find ways to “get out on the town.” and I don't know how, but given the choice, I am very happy with being a mom as often as I can be. It’s not that I am an antsy mother who is scared to leave her child, although I do call every five minutes just in case, it is the fact that I feel bad asking someone to take care of her for a couple hours while I go have fun. When I do head out to a movie or dinner with my boyfriend and leave my daughter with her grandparents, I have a hard time thinking of what I am missing.

I recently watched an episode of Reba on LIFE. Cheyenne said to her mom, “When did you realize you were old and your life was over? I feel like I know what every day is going to be like. I go to school, come home and I am a mother, and then tomorrow is the same and the day after too.” It was something that the audience was supposed to laugh at, but me, I was saying, “You are so right!”

Lately, women are having kids younger and younger. People say that we are too young to have kids, but to other women who want to have a baby at 39, people say that is too old. Where is the happy medium? Since I have a baby, like so many other young women my age do, does that mean our lives are pretty much over?

I have to say that not everyday is the same for me really. Yes, I do go to school… and I am a mother 24/7, but every day is new and exciting because my daughter learns and does something new every day and that makes me think, my life is just beginning.

©COPYRIGHT 2008 ASHLEY B. VINCENT