Saturday, April 27, 2019

*Fading Red of the Bridal Dress*

Image source: DHgate.com


So here is what I am wondering about these days: What is it about turning thirty that completely freaks out a single woman [Well majority of them atleast]? However, before jumping into a sea of hazy contemplation [or read as a disgruntled rant], I need to give a brief detail about myself. So; I am a twenty nine year old woman on the verge of being thirty [Or well! may be just a woman who has been ageing for 29 years but whose body stopped the process of growing in size at what? Seventeen may be! (fortunately or unfortunately)]. My facial skin, though, was not as lazy as my stunted body [And hey! Please do not judge me too hard. My tiny frame did manage to stretch up to four feet and dragged itself up to eleven more inches]. Coming back to my facial skin; it has been through that dark phase when zits were stubborn to sit all over my cheeks leaving no space for my skin to breathe. One fine day, clouds started to lift and the dark phase was over. But the scars remained. All in all, I am not a hot looking chick, but I just get by. May be you’ve already started wondering if I have got some brains as well  inside my stunted body; then well, let me tell you I have got a teeny-weeny bit which enables me to earn a decent living on my own and be financially independent. So again, I am not an intellectual catch, but I just get by. The crux of the whole story is that I am an average woman; average looks [Though my height and frame is less than average and haven’t I been judged for that? Hell Yeah!], average intelligence, average nature, average charisma, average earning and add some more averages from your side in this list of averages. I live in a very small town which does not show up in the auto drop down list in most of the online form filling sites. Ahem! I suppose in my attempt to give brief details about myself, I have derailed a little too much. So let me get back to the subject of my contemplation mentioned in the very beginning. Why turning thirty and being single is such a huge deal? Is it just a society thing and the peer pressure of getting married at the right age and right time?

Is getting married at the right time more important than getting married to the right man? Or are we [Read the clan of single women touching thirty] actually deluded in our concept of what we call as the ‘right man’? What is it about ‘thirty’ that puts us all on our toes and a long ongoing search of the ‘right man’, the ‘true love of our lives’ almost comes to a sudden halt as if we are being jolted out of our senses by the emergency brake hit right on time by the super dictator analytical brain to save us the damage of being forlorn and alone? Were we deluded before or do we get deluded just near that milestone of thirty? It is like until reaching thirty we had been in an expedition to find a lake of soul mate love, a natural one, just out there waiting for us to take a dip; on hitting thirty, however, we start opening up to the new option of rather creating an artificial one. There is a gradual acceptance to building dams to harness love against the walls of resistance to loneliness and insecurity.   
   
Why is it that a single woman at twenty nine years, eleven months and thirty days is still an alright kind of marriage material and yet things change in a single day? Is there an invisible expiry date imprinted on us that renders us not as good for nuptial ties [or is it nuptial consummation] after we hit thirty? And if this is not the case, why is there so much pressure about marrying by the age of thirty? There is pressure of family, relatives, society and all sorts but the real pressure is when we start feeling it too.  This is just how our mental conditioning is. We want to be with Mr. right and at the same time we don’t want to risk being alone waiting for Mr. right when [for god sake] that Mr. right has not shown up in thirty long years. Even though social pressure is there, the fact is we become insecure as well. There is insecurity of being left out alone in the world while all your friends are busy having pompous weddings, elaborate pre-wedding and post-wedding photo shoots, crowding their facebook and insta walls with wonderful honeymoon destinations, procreating and kicking out babies. Also, there is insecurity of decent men already having been taken or being taken as we are waiting for some in comprehendible definition of ‘right man’ to fructify into an actual physical creation. Surely, this insecurity then becomes a contributing factor in our decision to take a blind plunge into the sea of matrimony hoping to keep afloat on the live jacket of adjustment and compromise. They say life is a gamble. Perhaps the adage would be truer in context of arranged marriages.

Why is marriage so important to validate our existence? Why can’t we live peacefully without getting fanatic about this marriage stuff? Why is there so much hysteria surrounding this one subject? It is strange that a single woman’s achievements seem all pale to the society in comparison to a married one [ true for the average achievers at least if not the ones on top notch] We can be average and still choose to be single; or can’t we [ without inviting some derogatory or demeaning glances sending our fragile average self esteem down the drain]? If an average woman is approaching thirty, the gates of matrimony start shrinking to accommodate her less and lesser each day despite her willingness to go past someday. Yet she’s not spared the verbatims people have been using since ages to enquire about single womens’ future wedding plans and even though she’s mortified at such queries, the average single woman doesn’t mutter a word about her dashed hopes. She keeps fighting a vicious circle of hope and hopelessness in the battlefield of her mind. An average single woman approaching thirty is no less than a warrior.

A single woman turning thirty is not a shiny glossy building but it is definitely the kind of building which has survived many storms and bad seasons. She is strong willed and special despite all the averages she has got in her person. There are multitude of factors which might have led her to be still single but there is no reason she should be out casted as a specter just because she does not have that one tag of married on her advantage. She becomes upset and depressed sometimes; but she knows how to pick herself up. She knows that the red color of her much awaited bridal dress is leaking out of the corners of her mind, becoming faint each day, but she knows one day will be her day and she is strong enough to wait for that day.

To all the women who are single and approaching thirty, cheers and a thumbs up!