Sadness

Two days after a conversation with a co-worker I'm still thinking about it and am still sad over what I heard and saw that day.

Thursday I was having a conversation with a co-worker during lunch time. She and I were discussing ex-boyfriends, relationships, children, etc. The conversation really ended up going in so many directions! She shared her opinions or feelings, if you will, about marriage and children.

I had mentioned that my parents really want grand-children. As we all know, I'm not married so I won't be having children anytime soon. Rather, they should be talking to Jennifer! I was kind of laughing about it, but my co-worker looked at me with seriousness written all over her face and actually a bit of concern for me saying, "You can have children without being married"! She then went on about how great it was for her to be a single mom and how much stronger she is because of it. That she is a better person after raising her son as a single mother.

I have no doubt she is a stronger person and she's probably a better person, having to rise up to that challenge.

I walked away from our conversation that day quite sad for her and the way she viewed life and what she deserved or even how she viewed herself as a person. Kind of taking that "whatever is left will have to do" mentality.

I then went from work to the mall to try and get my cell phone fixed. While standing at the Verizon Wireless kiosk in Northwoods Mall I was doing some people watching. I saw a real diverse group of people, most of which were out shopping for back-to-school clothes.

As I'm standing there I realize that I'm seeing a lot of babies being pushed in strollers by teenage girls. These girls were around 15 or 16 and they're walking around the mall with their girlfriends or their boyfriends and their babies.

Again, I felt sadness for them. High school is supposed to be an exciting time of first dates and proms and free summers of the beach and the pool and whatever else. (Realizing that my interests are not the same as everyone else's!) But instead, these girl's summers were changing diapers and pushing babies around and not at all what it's supposed to be.

To make it even sadder, I believe that I lot of these girls are thrilled to be mothers at this age and have no idea what they're missing: their childhood and possibly their future.

I was thinking back to when I was in high school. I knew no one who was having sex at my age. No one! Even in college, I knew no one that was having sex. And let me just put this into perspective. High school was 9 years ago for me. College was only 5 years ago for me. Not that long ago. Things have changed so much in the few years; I'm amazed...and sad.