Today I turn 24. I am married, for over a month now. My husband is going to school, working towards a career which he is very passionate about and determined to succeed in. I have my college diploma. I hold a steady job, where I work about 35 hours a week. There are many people there that I care about. I volunteer with the AIDS project in my town. I am working as a teaching assistant, which you could say is another volunteer position. I love the feeling that I am helping to educate students at my university, which I love very much. I enjoy participating in classes and helping with fundraisers at my church. I have Shelby, who I love, although the honeymoon phase is long over.
Despite all of this, I am dissatisfied. The feeling of satisfaction and joy that I once got from baking is much diminished, basically gone. I do not know what to do with the three quarters (or so) of my life that I have left to live. Coworkers encourage me to start a family. Academically minded friends urge grad school. One friend cautions against making any kind of decision within a year of getting married. I feel restless. Film? Sexuality? Knitting? These are my current passions, but how, practically, do I make my living from one of these? And how do I know my passions will not shift again?
On top of this, and with great hysteria, I am not sure I should have married my husband. We got engaged almost three years ago, and once it was decided I never questioned it until after it was done. After feeling like the sexually 'odd' one in our relationship for a long time, I'm now starting to wonder if my husband's hormone levels are normal, or if there is something he has kept from me all this time. We haven't had sex since we got married, and he doesn't seem to be suffering from the absence. I can find release on my own, but I acutely feel the absence of companionship inherent in our current situation. I feel like I live with a roommate that I just happen to share a bed with.
What really frustrates me is that, although the problem of frequency has been around almost our entire relationship, it only recently occurred to me that, unless I do something (what, I don't know) it will persist indefinitely. Trying to come up with a solution leaves me feeling deeply alone. Why didn't I consider this before I agreed to love this man for the rest of my life?
Another problem: do these feelings find root in what I really want from my marriage, or are they born of the thousands of unrealistic portraits of marriage I have been presented with in my lifetime? Couples constantly cuddled up, making out before you leave for work, this is the norm I have seen. Do married couples really act that way? In movies, if a couple sits at opposite ends of the sofa and only kiss when he leaves the house, something is wrong. So, is something wrong with us? And how have I reached this age without knowing how real people actually act?
I am 24. Today I gave myself my first ever birthday orgasm. The other first is that, for the first time in my life, I have no idea what I will be doing on my next birthday. What will 25 bring? Not knowing leaves me deeply unsettled.
