Is it real or surreal?

Written 3 September 2006

In the olden days, people would be pregnant and married at an early age, generally speaking. This was considered normal. These days when a young girl gets pregnant at the age of about 19, or younger, or engaged before the time she has turned 24, it is frowned upon. With all the new technology and contraception methods available to the youth these days, why is it that so many youngsters are falling pregnant? We no longer live in the old times where pills and injections did not exist, condoms were not used, or people were not informed and well educated about what could happen from sexual intercourse.

In high school, my friends and I used to sit around a table and think of the future. Who would be the first to have a baby? Who would be the first to become engaged? Who would be the first to move in with a man? These questions seemed so far a head in time, that it actually didn’t dawn on us, that these questions would be answered two years after school.

Children think that reality will only hit them when we are in our mid-twenty’s. We ignorantly think that after school, we go to university and still have a wonderful time, still living with our parents and milking them for money so we don’t ‘actually’ have to work. Reality should then only hit once we have studied and started to find a professional job. Then we settle down, have kids and live a normal routine life. In my life and experience, this is not how it goes.

This year it feels as though all these things you expect to gain in your late twenty’s, have come crashing down like a ton of bricks. It is almost like a huge sign is staring me in the face with a message saying- THIS IS LIFE, DEAL WITH IT!!! But I won’t deal with it because I don’t believe it to be real. This is what has happened this year to make me feel this way... (unlike the original chapter – I have edited this chapter drastically, to protect certain people)

Through the grape vine of gossip, I heard that people were getting pregnant and getting engaged – before the age of 20. Some of the people’s circumstances would justify their actions, I agree, but nevertheless I would never have done what some of the person did. I believe that you must accept your responsibilities and the consequences that may follow from your actions. They are not anyone else’s actions, you decided to do something so therefore you must be mature enough to deal with your problems. Don’t cowardly run away from the acts you so bravely jumped into. The news of these events were shocking to me, but what made it even worse was that people paraded the stories around as if they were all jokes. These events were people’s realities, which actually somehow became mine. I couldn’t believe that the things my friends and I thought would happen so much later in life, were actually happening now.

It really hit home. I kept asking myself, should this be happening now? At this age? I could not, even as hard as I tried, convince myself that this was reality. But others were trying to convince me that it was reality, telling me that this does happen at this age. I secretly thought that they were denying it to themselves. I mean, we live in a world now where it is actually quite impossible to get into situations if you take the right precautions.

All these events were totally surreal to me. I was happy for the people as they were happy with their actions and events, but I didn’t think it was right.

I mean, what is the rush?

Everyone was so supportive of the people, as was I, but it was like there was a giant green gorilla in the middle of the room and no one was willing to talk about it. Everyone kept saying how surreal all the events were, but I think it was because they didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that it was absurd. At a young age a person has not got their head screwed on probably, the youth of today tend to rush into things without clearly thinking about the outcomes of their decisions. Marriage is a life-time commitment, let me repeat that, a life –time commitment. You are bound together by law until you die. That is 365 and a quarter days times by about 70 years. This is why I could not in the slightest understand why people were not speaking up. Understandably, it was not their life or my life, so therefore we should all stand back, smile and be happy for the people. That is what I did, for it was their life, their decisions and I cannot be judgmental. I know it is their lives and I should not be writing about it, and for that I do apologize, but I use their examples to aid in explaining to you how I feel about reality and growing up.

Another example I use is the incident where another one my acquaintances pretended to be pregnant. She was trying to see how quickly gossip would spread and how fast people would be aware of her ‘secret’. I do agree with her intention to see how people gossip and how quickly news spreads, because in the space of about 20 minutes, everyone was talking about her. It is saddening to think that gossip rules the world, it is what our conversations are made of, as if humans get a kick out of judging others and displaying their feelings so openly. I disagree completely with the fact she was pretending to be pregnant, an issue that is occurring everyday to young girls and here she was joking about a serious issue. It was like she was making a mockery of the people I knew, and their troubles they were facing. It was a joke about reality, our reality. This made everything seem more surreal.

Maybe I am living in the past and do not want to accept the present and that people these days fall pregnant and get married in their early years. Maybe I am old fashioned and am trying to deny the fact that times have changed and people are different. Or maybe I just don’t see this as MY reality.