startling, comforting.

One of the things I promised myself when I planned this year was that regardless of how stressful law school becomes, I would always find time to do things I liked. Everyday is one step towards that goal, and sometimes, it is sleep that gets sacrificed just so I can sit and read that book that I want to read or watch that movie or show I've been wanting to see. They always have this way of showing me kind of how to pick up where I left off on my journey to self-discovery.

Over the course of the past week, I was surprised to discover things about myself that had crept up on me so discreetly - (I imagine they had to be really really quiet lest the thinker in me tries to squash them with guilt for even existing in the first place) But now, there they are: in my head, in my heart. Surprisingly a part of me.

Elizabeth Gilbert, in her book Eat Pray Love spoke of the first - and probably the most significant as of yet. She wrote:

"To create a family with a spouse is one of the most fundamental ways a person can find continuity and meaning in American (or any) society. - First you are a child, then you are a teenager, then you are a young married person, then you are a parent, then you are retired, then you are a grandparent - at every stage you know who you are, you know what your duty is and you know where to sit at the reunion. You sit with the other children, or teenagers, or young parents, or retirees. Until at last you are sitting with the ninety-year-olds in the shade, watching over your progeny with satisfaction. Who are you? No problem - you're the person who created all this. The satisfaction of this knowledge is immediate, and moreover, it's universally recognized. How many people have I heard claim their children as the greatest accomplishment and comfort of their lives? It's the thing they can always lean on during a metaphysical crisis, or a moment of doubt about their relevancy -- If I have done nothing else, in this life, then at least I have raised my children well.

But what if, either by choice or by reluctant necessity, you end up not participating in this comforting cycle of family and continuity? What if you step out? Where do you sit at the reunion? How do you mark time's passage without the fear that you've just frittered away your time on earth without being relevant? You'll need to find another purpose, another measure by which to judge whether or not you have been a successful human being.

Virginia Woolf wrote: 'Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword.' On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where 'all is correct'. But on the other side of that sword, if you're crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, 'all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course.' Her argument was that the crossing of the shadow of that sword may bring a far more interesting existence to a woman, but you can bet it will also be more perilous.

The Bhagavad Gita - that ancient Indian Yogic Text - says it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection. So now I have started living my own life. Imperfect and clumsy as it may look, it is resembling me now, thoroughly."

Reading her thoughts, I thought to myself 'this is exactly how I feel at 26' - walking on eggshells hoping that no one will judge me because I haven't an inkling of a relationship leading to that comforting path of marriage and procreation, more so the desire to be antsy and procreate, for any reason. I haven't met anyone that I could fall in love with, in that kind of lovey-dovey way. But, I have met the people that I am sure I will love forever.

In the few moments that I have found the time to contemplate on what would comfort me in the long run, I was surprised to realize that, if and when I reach a ripe old age, all I would have to credit my existence are lifelong friendships - that would be okay. Probably a surprise to my friends who call me the "Charlotte" of our group in that I am perennially in love with the idea of marriage and babies. Yet there it is. That resolute feeling of quiet. The calm that tells me I can rest from this tiring search for a partner. Not to close my doors to whatever the future holds, but at last, I have given myself the permission to live happily as a single person for now, or maybe for ever.