On the cusp of my 30s: commitment beyond home ownership, marriage and babies
“Queer not as being about who you're having sex with (that can be a dimension of it); but 'queer' as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it.” - bell hooks
I turn 30 in 3 months. I write this from County Down, a few days before my cousin’s wedding - we grew up together - as children, teenagers and young adults - spent a few weeks together every summer from age 8 to 18 and started studying at uni together (we even ended up being placed opposite each other in halls!). We both left (northern) Ireland for a wider sense of freedom, and the hope of better work opportunities. S lives in Australia, works as a medical doctor (the first in our wider family), has bought a house there with her soon to be husband (teenage sweethearts!), and hopes to have kids in a few years.
I’m very proud of her, and very happy for her.
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In my primary school, I was one of 6 girls in a year of 7 pupils (there was one boy). Our primary school was small and *very* rural, and almost all of our parents had left school with no qualifications. I am the only “girl” who has not married and/or had a baby by 30. I’m the only one in my year, who likely struggles to explain to relatives and people I grew up around, what my job and work actually is (communications in the public sector)- the women I spent early childhood with, work in retail, childcare, teaching and nursing. The man, is an engineer. I’m the only one in my year (probably) who doesn’t have any savings, rents vs owns a house and doesn’t/can’t drive (this might be something I work towards changing this year!)
I’m also the only one who has studied arts at university, lived in London, written for national and international media as a journalist, has had a girlfriend…
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I am also one of a minority among my friends (and peers) who I met via third-level education, or living in a city in England (or share in having or having had these experiences), who is single, or renting or opposed to biological parenthood (“motherhood.”)
Among my working class rural Irish peers of childhood and among my middle class metropolitan peers of adulthood, I am very unusual. As a “woman” for at almost 30, to be single, to still be renting, to have not yet had a long-term relationship, to be mostly opposed to marriage and to be fiercely opposed to the idea of being a “mother” with so much intensity, that it’s at the core of why I identify as a non-binary woman.
Across class differences, two different countries, across queer and straight lives. Most of my peers and friends, live as (or are moving towards) the three m’s that seem to dominate life at almost 30: monogamy, marriage and motherhood.
Whilst I could share in starting “big school” at 11, formals, first kisses, graduation, moving city and/or country…my late 20s to early 30s are defined by rites of passage, norms and ways of living that are impossible for me, or undesirable, or that I at best, feel ambiguous about.
I spent 18 to 28 living in poverty. First as a student. Then coming on and off benefits, for years. Underemployed, for years. And very unwell, for years. Because of how my working class roots intersected with being disabled, queer, and having experienced a lot of abuse and traumatic grief between birth and 25. I haven’t left the UK or Ireland in 6 years. Peers stayed in linear employment, and steadily advanced in careers. They saved house deposits and went on fun and frequent holidays abroad, to Europe, America, Asia…
On my 27th birthday I felt dizzily alive, alone at the beach in Scarborough - I had not been to the sea in 2 years.
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I am someone who centres platonic connection as the foundation of my life. Who experiences sexual attraction to men (and finds it by and large, easy to have sex with men; I feel no emotional attachment or regret). I experience romantic attraction to women (and find it impossible so far not to experience intense emotional attachment immediately after sex with a woman). I’m bisexual, and was (or lived as) a lesbian for a year but proving, that there can be no absolutes (in my life), I’ve only been in love once in a real and deep way - with a man, a former friend with benefits. He’s still a friend. My communication skills have improved a lot in my 20s…!
I love living alone and don’t ever want to give it up. I would like to have a girlfriend again, but don’t know if a long-term relationship (with a woman) can be compatible with being an autistic person who loves solitude, and who loves flirting with men. Will I have to sacrifice too much (of my own space or self)?
Marriage has very little appeal for me although parenthood has considerable pulls, but if it ever happens. I will be a dad type with a partner giving birth, or a step-parent or a foster parent. I’m an aunt, which I’m very fortunate for, as it provides me with a parenting role which gives me the greatest joy of my life. I’m not ready, financially or emotionally, for parenthood. My capacity for parenthood diverges distinctly from so many friends who are or want to be mums - it’s not affected by biological limits.
I do hope to buy my own house eventually but that will most likely be in my 40s. I can’t afford it to then.
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So, it’s weird. I’m almost 30 and my career is just taking off. I still have a landlord. I am unsure about monogamy. I am indifferent to opposed about marriage. I will never be a mother and can imagine (literally) nothing worse - being pregnant would be so dysphoric for me, that I would probably try to kill myself if I had to remain so (this is why I did not lose my virginity to 21, when I had moved to England, where abortion was legal).
It’s a sense of feeling left out, anxious, unanchored and the emotional navigation of (invariably) marriage and motherhood, leading to distance within, and even the end of some friendships. It’s much more intense gender dysphoria than ever before. I’m a “woman” who enjoys casual sex with men, doesn’t want to find a husband and feels alienated from my capacity to create life and can’t imagine anything worse than motherhood. It’s like when I was 8 years old and hated boy-bands, makeup and dressing up. Feeling out of place among most girls and women of my age. Unable to connect much.
It’s a sense of freedom, autonomy and unwritten scripts. By 30 my mum was married with 3 children. By 30, both my grannies were married with so many children (they had 13 each). It’s a time of new friendships (often with people a good few years younger, or significantly older than me). Of feeling more deeply attuned to queerness and asking what does it mean to live this very queer life - one so at odds with the norms - and of re-emergent political energy and enthusiasm.
At almost 30, I commit to:
making roots in Sheffield/South Yorkshire
a career in communications/the public sector
intergenerational friendships and desire (this can be good, actually and I need to write about this)
trade unionism (member of Unison and shareholder at Wortley Hall)
socialism (member of Sheffield Credit Union and the Irish Credit Union, Gut Level queer collective in Sheffield and I’ve just signed up to Good Gym - my first action will be helping to compost a community garden in Sheffield)
the belief that wider (and chosen) family can be as important as immediate family and the wish to dismantle erasure of closeness and love beyond the nuclear family (I need to write about this too)
the willingness to accept more than one truth about myself or others, the emotional readiness to move towards change and truth even if it’s messy or hard, intellectual and moral curiosity and challenge (can I match 40 books in 2024?)