When's it my turn?

I just heard news that one of my closest friend in high school gave birth to a healthy baby boy a few days ago. At 20, she has a son already. But, mind you, in this crazy generation, she's pretty lucky to have her loving boyfriend (I know the guy) and her parents (pretty cool parents, if you ask me) to have her back through this pregnancy.

She probably had the most awful timing when she told me she was having a baby. It was around two months ago when she told me that--no, not yet--that a priest from our school died that day, Father Andy. Practically growing up hearing Father Andy's masses, going to confession, and the hundreds of Cloud 9 and medallions we all received every year for more than 10 years of my stay in San Beda-Alabang, it was such a big shock to our small community that we lost a great person.

I asked about the details to his wake and she replied "The wake would be on Friday sa Mendiola, and Saturday sa Bene. By the way ninang ka na."

I was like, teka--ano daw? Fuuuuuuuu--

And then the little girl in me started screaming. But at first I didn't believe it. Then she slowly filled me in with the details that she was as far as seven months, the parents were outraged at first, her boyfriend was ready to marry her then and there... it was good news--the best news after hearing that a person close to you left the world that same day.

Of course I couldn't keep it to myself. I immediately called my bestfriend (13 years in the making, yo) told her the news and said the "don't tell her I told you" skit, but she called our friend up anyway. My bestfriend and I don't remember the last time we felt that giddy, that excited about something--it wasn't even about a boy!

I remember that we both felt weird that we were so happy with the news. If it was another person, we'd be like "eh, talaga?" or "yikes." But not this happy. We figured that maybe because we were close to the person and we knew everything was going well with her and the most important thing was that she was happy.

After another tearful recap with my bestfriend, I was finally calm after all the excitement and (ta-da!) it made me think of myself for a bit. As far as I can remember, I had always seen myself to be married before I was 25 and be starting a family then (Admit it. Who hasn't?!). But I'm already 20, I've been dating a guy for three years already and so far, plans for marriage are way waaaaay down my bucketlist.

It's amazing how things we planned for and the way we saw ourselves in the future before easily change. Some just change out of their own accord, and some, you won't even bother to go through with; not because you don't want it , but because you don't need it anymore.

Looking back, I can now say how crazy it is to be even thinking of marriage at this age. It may be because it's a "new day and age"--one concept that our parents (who were probably married and stable by the age of 23) have a hard time understanding.

The way I see it, people tend to have this selfishness of milking their youth for what it's worth and pushing back the real world for a few more years in exchange of more shots, more pleasure, more time.

I'm not ashamed to think that I am one of those people. I need more time to find myself first before I even decide on finding my, ahem, I want to say husband but let's go with, life partner. I shudder at the thought of it. Yikes. Right now, I need to be myself for my own sake. A little selfishness won't hurt every now and then. But the way I see it, I need to think of myself and provide for myself first. That way, when I'm 100% positive that I can spend to my heart's content (read: shop), I can finally return the simple, albeit luxurious, life my parents gave me. And then I'll take the next step from there.

So grandchildren will have to wait, mom. Sorry. I'll have my turn, just not now.