Living Life Sans Planning

THE YOUNG LADY gets pregnant at fifteen, and decides to fall in love, perhaps expediently, with the presumed father. They quit school, marry,and give birth, in no particular order that can be easily determined.Factory work pays decently these days, but barely decently enough.Another kid comes along. Eventually, inevitably, the marriage becomes a war, under severe economic stress. It has all the trimmings, which include multiple separations, passionate short lived reunions, affairs, rumors of affairs, accusations of affairs, with some sporadic gratuitous violence for good measure. At last, at long last, the salvation of divorce. The kids make the standard transition from weapons to boomerangs, including lawyers fees. Thank the dear lord for grandparents, caretakers and victims of domestic intranquility. A forever marriage or three later, the young lady approaches forty, separated from husband number something, with several children, no job prospects, ready to look for new love. One might suspect that she's actually looking for sexual gratification, to which she is long accustomed and somewhat addicted, and financial security, to which she isn't, but one mustn't be judgmental or presumptuous. True love can come later, again, if at all. There are more urgent desires. To her credit and benefit, her children are healthy, all seven of them cute, well mannered, and on successful career trajectories, early on. She is still beautiful, which is no accident, as she recently augmented her natural beauty with new style and color and make up, new alluring clothing, and care to stay slender. She'll have plenty of offers. If she's smart, which is tenuous since she has not shown it heretofore, she'll find someone a bit older, but not too much older than she, a gentle man with resources. Always the resources. The female of the species seeks the male with resources,which can include wealth, fame, social status, and rugged good looks, the male seeks youth and beauty, which is fertility. The cow watches the bull fight and preens, awaiting the winner. Endlessly we compete for mates, as nature intends. Why people put themselves through all this is a matter for better minds, explainable only by nature, which, among humans, can be contravened, somewhat. Strange that more folks don't at least try. maybe they think its worth it, It isn't, arguably, not economically, environmentally (over population), or in terms of personal health. (marriage improves health, bad marriage does not) I'm a baby boomer. My mother told me that she would never even consider doing it all over again, were she young again in this age of valueless dollars and culture. People used to ask here why her son, so handsome, smart, well educated and charming, never married. Because he's smart, she used to say. Most married people I've interviewed say they agree, but that they themselves are very happily married, and wouldn't change a thing. I choose to believe them.