Sleep becomes a distant memory, of something I once enjoyed indulging in (much like ex-lovers and chocolate based deserts, which I had to give up due to the severe scarring they left on my thighs). My heart palpitates, my breath becomes short and before I know it my side lamp is on and I reach for my iPhone to play Angry Birds until I’m unconscious. (Please note: under normal circumstances it would be a book I turn to for refuge, however not even my heroes can put my mind to rest).
For weeks I have been trying to work out why this is happening to me, but alas to no avail. I’ve racked my brains to work out why I can no longer slip into my dreams as easily as I used to; why I lie there for hours in my double bed (for a single person), tossing and turning, breaking in and out of cold sweats. Just when I was about to give up and yield to my relentless insomnia, my 86 year old grandmother (imagine a four foot something, feisty little woman) enlightened me. "Loukia, you’re almost 25. I’m doing a 40 day fast for God to find you a husband before the year is over," she said and then crossed herself repeatedly, as she looked up to the heavens and imploringly muttered a (desperate) prayer to God. Never disregard the wisdom of the elderly. Being 25 is scary. No wonder I can’t sleep - I’ve never been that old before.
Age may be nothing but a number, but there are definitely some exceptions and this is one of them. Twenty-five is a significant number (Drake you ruined everything). It’s a quarter of a century, a silver wedding anniversary, the oldest I’ll ever have been, not to mention the age by which I promised my family and myself that I’d be married and planning a brood of little Loukias and tiny *insert imaginary husband’s name here*. Well, it doesn’t look like grandma’s prayers will be answered any time soon.
Ok, first things first, not every woman wants this and not every woman has to want it. In fact perhaps such traditional and archaic ideals are becoming more and more extinct as time passes. Even so, there are those few of us that one day, wish to be exactly like our mothers. So perhaps I’m overreacting a little right? 25 is still young, right? I’m still in the prime of my youth, right? Wrong. And this is where culture kicks in, because when you are taught the morals, traditions and values of one place but you grow up in a place that counters or contradicts these, it is very unsettling. Where my ethnic roots lie, a family should be a woman’s first priority, whilst her eggs are still fresh, if you know what I mean. I’m sure it’s not just Mediterranean girls that experience this. In fact if you’re heritage is from anywhere but the U.K but you’ve grown up here, I’m positive you can relate to some aspect of what I’m talking about.
I always say I live in two worlds and I think many of us do. We have our career and we have what I like to call our ‘real life’. Is it possible to succeed in both? Or will one suffer as a result of the other? In instances like this, one can’t help but raise the ever-relevant question: can women have everything? And even if they can, when should they aim to have it by? Is my grandmother right – am I setting myself firmly on the shelf with my journey of academia and my unquenchable thirst for a dazzling career? Or can I and will I one day simultaneously be a successful businesswoman and an almighty breeding machine? Well either way, to be honest all I am putting effort into right now is the former but with granny on my case, I’m starting to question whether my priorities are all mixed up.
Naturally I crave the big house, the perfect husband and the chance to feed the five thousand (four thousand of which will be my offspring of child-geniuses). I also sincerely dread the thought of being ‘that’ 30 year old woman in a party of 18 year olds, or the idea of nearing middle age and worrying about first dates and whether "he doesn’t really like me" because he didn’t put a kiss on the end of a text. However, I would never put men and relationships at the centre of my world.
Most of us go through life under the general notion that anything we want to acquire requires our utmost effort, hard work, determination and hunger to succeed. Whilst I believe that this is the case for most things, I don’t think it applies to finding a partner. In fact I genuinely believe that the more effort you put in, the less likely you are to find someone that doesn’t run a mile because of the stench of desperation. Obviously once you’re in a relationship that’s when the hard work commences, but in terms of finding one, all you can do is make sure you present yourself well and when you meet someone that sticks, who knows what could happen.
So as my 25th birthday approaches and my sleepless nights continue, I have decided to embrace the prospect of eternal spinsterhood and shrivelled ovaries and get myself a cat, a bachelorette pad, lots of new shoes for my cat to enjoy with me and of course, look up the current divorce rates (which if you’d like to know have tripled over the past ten years…or something like that). But at the same time, as I watch the dreams of my career slowly but surely becoming my reality, I think there’s hope for my real life to catch up too. Maybe 25 isn’t so scary after all. To be continued…
Loukia Constantinou will be using her column at the "The Tip" to discuss the pressures of getting older, getting wiser and getting...hitched...maybe. She's the features editor at SUPERSUPER, an irreverent Tweeter and her favourite quote is "anything Wiley says".
