I'm Terrified To Be A Housewife

Fifteen-year-old Sami daydreamed of what life would be like. To get married and have kids by her mid-twenties. I wanted that life, I wanted the marriage, the sharing everything with a special so-and-so. I already had the name picked out---Genieve, I love that name.

And I still plan on having those things! But I just hate the idea I'll be seen as a term and not the person I am.

I had a late start in the decade of life that was supposed to be figured out by 18. Ten years later, I'm still figuring everything out since life throws curveballs at you no matter what range of decade you are in. I took the time I needed for my mental health to stop generational miscommunication. My style changed to wearing what I like and not caring that I can wear the article of clothing that is going on my body---not theirs. I changed myself with the pride that was non-existent when I was younger.

But as I'm getting older, I keep getting those questions about what I'm doing with my life. Like what I'm supposed to be doing with my life.

I had an errand drive with a thought that woke me up in a way I need.

"I don't want to end up here. I know what will happen to me... I'll be a housewife."

It sounds like I'm making responsibility out to be terrible. We're taught happiness comes from marriage and babies. Now we're taught happiness is equal to those who know what they want out of life. You see, I'm born in a small town and raised in another small town. My little town in Virginia isn't a metropolis or a sideshow staple, but it does have a blue-collar regime. You get a job and get married....that's it. People in my town know me as an unmarried woman that lives with her grandfather. The term unmarried is what gets focused on. It's natural to want the best for someone and I appreciate the concern. But being a housewife isn't the life I wanted to have anymore.

Let me tell you what I've been through.

I had the first love of my life, a man I wanted to be with for the rest of my life. I thought I found it, I found that part of my life I dreamed about when I was fifteen. Every day I was with him I thought, this is someone I don't mind cooking and cleaning for, I wanted to walk down the aisle and be his wife. But as the fog lifted from my eyes...I saw the shackles I confused for love. The gaslighting was so intense it almost worked to control me for good. I was (almost) trapped by the man I wanted to be with. That American Dream we carved for ourselves was not going to happen. We had different images, I had imagined a husband that would love me and take care of me. He imagined someone who he could control with mind games. imagined myself being trapped in a house that he'll say was my home and I didn't deserve it. I severed the shackles after the third breakup.

I didn't want to lose him because of the intense love I had in that relationship. But in time, I never had him in the first place and it gave me comfort that I lost a love that was never there.

But freedom was better in my eyes. The idea of being a housewife lives with that nightmare. I'm not ready to get that idea back when I almost lost.

After months of healing from leaving the man I wanted to marry, I found the questions...the same ones I heard. I get asked questions that are not shaped by how I formed myself.

Despite the abuse...what I went through. It was still expected I find a man to marry to be supported and find fulfillment.

I think the way I resent myself terrifies people because I fight the social expectation for young women in a small town. People know I'm challenging the norm that I never agreed to.

I have been going to the same church since the year I lost my grandmother. For ten years, I've been asked the questions, until I noticed it was the same questions.

So do you clean for your grandfather?

What do you cook for your grandfather?

Do you have a boyfriend yet?

Asked things in cleaning, cooking, and making sure I'm interested in eventually procreating.

It may sound assumptive, but have you ever been asked the same questions that allude to something?

It's the way the church ladies grew up, of course, they were going to ask those questions. They're curious to know how where I'll go in life...but I'm rarely asked-

How's your book coming along?

How is your mental health doing from the relationship you left?

How can I help support you?

It's not geared towards a pre-set judgment that I'll be a woman who will cook, clean, and make tiny humans.

Because I'm (still) an unmarried woman

I answer truthfully, "I am not interested in marriage, I'd rather just not be in love after the way I got hurt and that's Ok."

The Sami that stands before them---is marred and transformed into a tougher, confident person. I shared my trauma in my published story Inglorious Ink. I'm proud of the person I became which was different that what I imagined as a daydreaming teenager. Even if it means the idea of marriage is pushed back for as long as I need to.

I'm not saving for a marriage, I'm saving for a future. Now that I got my life back from abuse...I need to live it the way I wanted. That's why I kept getting those hints during the darkest moments of my emotional abuse that I wasn't just strong because a man was trying to break my spirit...I was strong for knowing I can't be here. I need to somewhere else to turn these books into TV shows. I need to be that voice that I know I hear in the future.

I refuse to be a housewife. I'll be a wife and mother, but a woman that can't cook for shit and has terrible ADHD to maintain a clean house. But that doesn't mean I'd be irresponsible, everyone is a different kind of spouse. I just need a man or woman that knows I'm always going to be an individual that doesn't fit into norms.

For me to just be a cog in the machine I don't want to be a part of? No thanks.

I'll be that successful girl with her story gracing TV screens one day...and one day I'll have that daughter named Genieve.