Being An Unstable, 30ish, Single Latina
I’m single, I’m almost 30, I’m unstable and currently in the middle of moving from Texas where all my family is, to LA, where I have a few family members but most of the friends I grew up with. And no, I don’t mean “unstable” in the mental sense, but rather, the sense that I have almost no furniture, I don’t have a fancy set of knives or a deluxe blender, my clothes and my books and the bookshelf given to me by a close friend are just about the only items I’ll be taking with me to LA.
My well-intentioned family members have noted to me often recently: “Ay, Sari, you sure do move a lot, huh?” “M’ija, ¿te vas a mudar otra vez?” “¿No puedes encontrar trabajo aquí?”
I know they’re not trying to criticize me, but rather, they don’t understand why I’ve moved for work half a dozen times in the few years since I graduated from college; the truth is, I don’t really understand it, either. I just followed my profession, followed my dreams as it were, and that ended up taking me from Brownsville, Texas to Washington, D.C. to Northern California and now back to Los Angeles.
As the third generation in my immigrant family’s story, I feel like it’s my privilege to have such a fickle lifestyle; to be able to pick up and go when I feel like I want to. For my age, I’m the only female cousin who’s not married, and the fact that I’m perpetually single has often worried my tíos and tías. When am I going to get married and settle down and be stable and make babies? Although, in all fairness, the getting married and making babies part has become less of a concern, just as the being stable part has become much more disconcerting in recent months.
The truth is, I have no idea. As an educated Latina professional, I have so many more opportunities and openings than any of the women in my family have ever had. I feel like, if I don’t take full advantage of them, it’s a waste not just for me — but for all of them. Perhaps that’s a little self-serving, but at the same time, what was all the struggle for if not to afford me all these chances?
I was talking to a friend recently who told me, simply, to embrace the chaos. And, honestly, I feel like I’ve done so as much as possible. Even though I cannot, nor do I know when I will be able, to give my family members answers to questions like, “When will you settle down?” I feel like I have plenty of great stories and experiences to share with them, and as time goes on and I begin to feel like I need to stop bouncing around, perhaps we’ll all be able to share in the answer.
Follow Sara Inés Calderón on Twitter @SaraChicaD
