The age old question!
Catching up
Life continues to drag on as a bit of the same old, with some clashes every now and then erupting in the middle of the city to make us appreciate the status quo.
Ramadan has been pleasant so far despite the astronomical prices, the weather is cool and GECOL are itching to find an excuse to start cutting the electricity. If it can only last until the end of Ramadan? Third world problems at it’s best.
My job
My job continues to be a soul crushing cycle of routine and melancholy. A cycle that I waited for two years to be a part of. The salaries are meager, when divided by the black market rate of the US dollar (which controls in the price of everything in Libya) I find that I get paid a little more than 80$ a month. Try living by that tiny amount of money (which I’m not even getting due to a nation wide liquidity crisis, it’s so bad my account has been frozen by the bank because I haven’t cashed out money in over a year).
Getting married?
Everyone I know seems to be either getting engaged or getting married. It’s like they are answering some mating call that I’m not receiving.
When I ask my friends why do they want to get married. Their ready answer for this is that it is the next step that everybody seems to be taking.
Go to school, graduate, get a job, and get married.
I’m not too eager to share my life with someone else (assuming that I can afford the long and complicated courtship process that is a Libyan wedding) so for the next few years god willing, I’m staying single..
It doesn’t seem fair!
When I come to think of it, I haven’t done anything with my life, I graduated from college only to start working almost right away. And now when I’ve finally settled at a job, I find that the next step other than post graduate studies is getting married. What?
What I REALLY want to do
What I really want to do is travel! I’m yet to travel abroad with the exception of Tunisia (with all due respect, my two trips to Tunisia were awful). I’d like to go to new places and explore the world. It doesn’t have to be fancy or glamorous, I just want to gain experience and see the world, that is one of the things I have in my bucket list. And none of those items is getting married, none!
Delaying marriage is a personal decision, I’m not going door to door canceling weddings and breaking hearts! Maybe in two or three years I will be convinced to go through the bells and whistles for someone, but for the time being this seems like the worst idea I could think of (right after staying in Libya!!).
Sour grapes
What’s so good about marriage anyway? I’m not saying it’s sour grapes. But every married person I know is complaining about one thing or the other. Be it the spouse or the children or the high cost of life. I know I’m not the happiest person you would meet, but I know well enough not to sign up to a misery camp when the subscription fee is everything I made + my life taken away from me.
Final words
Are you married? Getting married soon? Single like myself? I believe that everyone has a story to tell and a unique perspective of his own. And I’d like to hear your story in the comments section below.
Have a nice day. And hug your kids if you have kids.