Club 25

When I was growing up, I had this one friend in my neighborhood. We went to the church together every week, girls' camp every summer, and we always had a lot of fun together. Even though we shared a lot of the same beliefs, I think our families came from quite different political backgrounds, and she was the type to really care about politics and me not at all. I'm not sure if she would have totally self-identified as a feminist, but to my 13-year-old, Mormon-girl self, she was the closest thing I knew to one.

(Okay, I'm more like 8 or 9 in this picture {bottom left}, but it was the closest I could find!)

I feel like she understood much better than I did the things that I now find wrong with my church's organization for teen girls. I am by no means saying that it's bad or untrue or anything like that (because it is a wonderful program and there have been some really positive changes made in the decade or so since I was in the organization), I'm just saying that I think there are things (and maybe a lot of that is just cultural also) that shouldn't have been, such as focusing so much on preparing for marriage, the subtle undertones of getting an education "just in case," and making sure that whatever choice you do make as far as education and training goes will go hand-in-hand with motherhood. After a successful 6 years of weekly iterations along these lines, at 18 I felt I was more than prepared to step up to my destiny as a wife and mother. [Enter reality.]

(A classic snapshot from high school)

My friend, however, had other plans, one of which she referred to as "Club 25." She would talk about this club as if we had both agreed upon being members, which I definitely hadn't. Basically the premise was just that we wouldn't get married until we were 25. I don't recall now her reasoning behind this club (though I have to assume it revolved around getting a good education and having a good career and not needing to rely on a man or a title to achieve any of that) because to be honest, I probably tuned her out a lot when she talked about "our" plans for Club 25. There was no doubt in my mind that, despite her assumption that I was on board with her, I would be married and have 2.5 children by age 25. So I went to college with the "find-a-husband" mindset, and she went off to college with the "preparing-for-law-school" mindset.

(One of my favorite pictures from freshman year)

Now here we are, years later, and I laugh at what has happened. We both turned 26 last year (we're less than a month apart, so that helped the whole idea of the club), and while she was working on her law degree and celebrating her one-year wedding anniversary (because yes, she got married only a few months after turning 25, still being the only one of us to uphold the tenets of the club), I was still single and wondering what I was going to do with my life.

Now, I'm not saying that my youthful points of view were bad. Marriage and motherhood and family are all extremely important, and I still very much plan on one day having my own family, but honestly, there are other paths. There are other purposes that God might have for us. And that just wasn't something I was taught in my youth. It wasn't something anyone talked about, besides my friend. Maybe that's the very reason she was so adamant about it. And although I don't hold any hard feelings toward those who in my younger years steered me toward that path and no other, I sometimes wish that I had paid more attention to my friend's speeches about Club 25. Maybe then I would have thought out an actual career path instead of my "just in case" one. Maybe I would have been more willing to develop talents that I didn't think would be useful to my life as a wife. Maybe I wouldn't have spent years feeling that my life was on perma-pause because I wasn't a wife or mother.

Or maybe not. My life hasn't gone how I planned, but I still believe that God has been slowly leading me to find my purpose. Or, more appropriately, His purpose. I'm not sure that I know it yet, but I feel its subtle prodding here and there, and I know I'm on the right path.

So just consider me an honorary member of Club 25. I realize I already missed the deadline, but I've stopped missing the point.