We were on a break!

I guess you can tell that I used to watch a lot of NBC in the late 90s. How many posts have I titled with a catchphrase from Must-See-Teevee? Too many. I don't watch television any more. I got a DVD player and a flat-tube TV for Christmas and I watch DVDs of Curb Your Enthusiasm when I get home from work, which is almost always in the late evening, like, after 8, because I go to the gym and/or get stuck in snowstorms. Occasionally I rent movies and today I'll probably crack open the first two seasons of Seinfeld that my dad gave me for my birthday.

About my birthday. My thirtieth. It was a bit of a watershed for me. It is for a lot of people, women especially. Because biology makes it a watershed for those of us who want children before we are officially classified as AMA. Advanced Maternal Age. Or, my personal favourite, "elderly primagravida." And do you know when almightly medical science has decided that is?

Age 35.

Thirty fucking five.

Still young, in my humble opinion. But that's when having kids becomes a much riskier enterprise. Not overnight, of course. This stupid biological clock crap, tick-tock, tick-tock - please. Everybody is different. But it gets harder and riskier and that's just somewhere I don't really see myself going. Somewhere I would prefer not to go, if I can.

Anyway. So now that 35 is that much closer, and I've been with the same guy, my best friend, for four years, and I have a great job (actually, jobs plural - I'm almost done consulting on one project and have been approached to consult on a second), and I'll be starting management courses soon, and I'm well on my way to the joys of saving for a downpayment on a condo and retirement planning and other joys of grown-up life, I feel it's time to make a decision and take some kind of action. Because, even though I love this guy, I am unhappy with the current arrangement, which was tolerable when I was 26 and had oodles of time and no money and no career. Of just living day by day and not making plans.

And we've talked and talked about it and cried buckets and argued, and this has intensified in the last six months, the last year, and now we've reached the breaking point. I can't wait around much longer. It is not fair to me. It is not what I want anymore. It is not what I ever wanted. It was enough, before. But things are very different now.

Actually, despite this, this...blip, this not-broken-up-not-on-a-break-yet-not-sure-if-we're-getting-married thing that has me waking up at 4 in the morning in floods of tears, life really has never been better. I am not inflexible. I am willing to make compromises. But not if they're going to make me miserable, or bitter, or angry, in the long run.