Expectations

Beans and I have been friends since childhood. Our families go to the same church, so we got to see each other almost every week. Unfortunately going to college and attending different churches kept our group apart. Friendships thinned to only seeing eachother on major religious holidays.

She called me earlier in the week to see if I could hang out, so I made a girl-date for Friday evening. We met, got drinks, and really started catching up. She knows about my cousin's divorce, so we talked about the pressures of being an Indian woman.

All the mothers in our Indian clique love Beans the most. She respects her elders. She speaks our language very well. She still wears traditional clothing to church. She wanted to get married to an Indian guy, and she was trying to do it according the the standard Indian timeline... no later than 26 years old.

Last year Beans got engaged to an Indian guy. (Her mother started to set her up at 21). At 24, she met her match (on her own) and they were getting hitched. I never met the fiance, but Beans sent me a link to their wedding webpage. He looked hideous, but she was happy. Or so I assumed...

She asked me to take time off to come to her engagement party, but a week before the party she announced the wedding was off.

I was the last to hear for some reason, but I called her as any good friend would. I didn't care for details. I just wanted to make sure she was ok and wouldn't engage in any unhealthy behavior to cope.

A few supervised binge-drinking experiences were enough, and she moved on. That was pretty much the last I heard from her.

During our girl-date on Friday, she opened up about her life. She didn't really love the ex-fiance. She was only getting married to get her mother off her back, and to please the other mothers in our church. Beans felt like she was every FOB's last hope for cultural survival in America. The pressure was on her because I was dating every white man burnt by the sun, and the other girls were off doing their own thing too.

I had no idea Beans felt this way, but I assured her that living her life for anyone other than herself is the worst way to live. Trying to please our mothers was the reason my cousin J landed in an abusive relationship and is currently going through a painful divorce.

We discussed it all and concluded that it's never too late to live your own life, so I hope we all start doing that if we haven't already.