Tick tock.

I love the smell of babies. If you don't already know what a freak I am, I love going to the babies' department in any shopping mall and just 'inhale' the baby stuff. Does this mean I WANT a baby? I don't know. Just when I think I want one, the reality of it sets in. I have plenty of friends and colleagues who have babies/are having babies and the more I talk to them, the more I realise I'm probably not ready. The 9 months of pregnancy, the labour (wowee the labour stories still give me nightmares), the 3am feeds, the cost of a tin of powdered milk...

The sad truth is also that probably I'm still too focused on 'me', let alone care for another tiny, helpless human being. I've still got things to do, places to see and moments to experience before I commit myself fully to starting a family. Many of my friends and relatives 'love' reminding me of my age and that I shouldn't wait too long - you know la, the whole 'time to have kids' speech. What they don't realise is everyone has their own pace to follow and they don't see the bigger picture. Sure, it's great to get married and have the whole 2.5 kids thing but I'm not going to do it because I feel it's 'time'. I'll do it when my partner and I want to. The last thing I want is to rush and have children and end up resenting them because I wasn't ready.

Yes, I do envy my friends who have settled down with their babies and doting husbands (ok, some of them have doting husbands anyway...) but I believe all that is a natural progression that should be, well, natural. There is no rule set in stone that says marriage and kids complete your life and we should learn to respect the choices people make. Some of us marry at 24, some at 44. Some have kids, some don't. Some are fulfilled just being on their own. We listen too much to what the people around us say and never really ask ourselves what WE want.

My point? I want to get married. Eventually. I want babies. Eventually. But right now, I'm pretty happy with the direction of my life and although sometimes I hear the tick tock of my clock a bit too loud, I simply drown it out with the beat of my own drum.