So, step 1 in my new “I’m gonna change my life” mentality: Have “brunch” at a friend’s house on a workday.

I should have known the second I heard it was brunch on a workday that the only people present would be? Moms!

9 girls, and every single one had a baby attached to her breast, hip, or side. The conversation? Revolved around the merits of formula vs breastmilk, nursery vs pre-school, kindergarten exams, where to find a good maid, and where on earth did you get these pastries?

I could not have felt more like an alien if I had tried.

It’s not that I’m insanely jealous, not at all. Thankfully, I’m still at the selfish, “omg, be responsible for a baby?!” stage. But at the same time, I don’t have the “at least I work, and I’m successful and they’re so jealous of my freedom etc etc” mentality that buyons so many single ladies. It is true–the majority of the women had never worked, wanted to hear all about my work and travels and success and achievement etc.

But the truth is, I have never felt that I was really a career gung ho woman. I’m v.successful, it’s true, but I’ve never aspired to be. My career alone will never fulfill me, and it’s never going to be my rock when I’m old and grey and surrounded by kittens (or Alsatians). At least not this career. But at the same time, I’ve never felt that I was really a hubby/home/mum woman, not at all. I cannot imagine getting married, sitting at home, and dreaming up new salad receipies, eugh.

So that was part of my bad mood. The other part is more because I feel so left out–it’s not that I really want to fit in with this group of friends, it’s more the knowledge that I want to find a new group of fantabulous single ladies. But it’s hard because these are my childhood friends, my university friends. It’s a different kind of friendship.

At the same time, I know that when (if) I ever become a wife and mother, I’m never going to be like the majority of my friends. I’m never going to be the mom who disinfects the floors because her daughter is learning how to crawl or cook in the morning before I go to work so hubby finds food when he comes back.

Or even when it comes to something like the house. I’ve been to the homes of at least a dozen friends, and they’ve all never varied: the same classical, antique salon look.

And I just don’t understand why I’m not like everybody else. Why my idea of a dream home is an ultra-modern feng shui house with minimal, MINIMAL stuff everywhere. Why I don’t want my house to be a carbon copy of my mom’s salon, with the chandeliers and wooden dining table and lace curtains.

It would be so much easier if I was just like everyone else. If I was more ‘feminine.’ More Egyptian. More traditional. Less educated. Less free-thinking. Less intelligent. Less ambitious.

Uffffff.

I think it’s time to go swimming. Only guess what? The SCHIZOPHRENIC weather has turned cold again!!