Some realizations

I've come to a few unsettling realizations lately and I'm not sure what to do about them. Perhaps I'll share them and ruminate on them a bit (isn't that a great word?).

1. I may want to have kids after all. I think my lifelong aversion to being a mother really is an aversion to being a typical American mother. After seeing the workings of families in Europe, I've realized that in order to be a mother, it's not necessary to give up everything about oneself that doesn't relate to motherhood, the way American women tend to become a veritable Stepford wife once they give birth (not all women, of course, just most of them). I don't want to be only someone's wife or someone's mother, I want to be me. But I'm realizing that doesn't mean that I can't have kids - I just don't want to have kids the American way.
2. I may be single for the rest of my life. I've only been on a few dates in the last 4.5 years, which doesn't bode well for my future if I want to get married. While it's easy to blame American men, who won't give me the time of day because I don't look or act like Paris Hilton, I also have a bit of an aversion to putting myself out there. That doesn't seem to have stopped other people from getting married, but it seems like it's going to stop me.
   
3. I'm probably not cut out to be an architect. There were times in both undergrad and grad school when it seemed very likely that I wasn't going to pass a crucial class, and that failure would have completely disrupted my schooling and my plans for graduation. It wasn't because of a lack of effort, but more a complete lack of understanding. While I managed to (just barely) finish both degrees, and even learned the lessons that I should have learned much earlier, I probably should have taken the hint the first time and bowed out before I accrued so much student loan debt. I might be doing something boring, but at least I would have freedom rather than a prison of debt.
   
4. I'm never going to have the life I always thought I would. I'll probably never be able to buy a house, I'll never live abroad, I won't be able to travel too much, and I'm not sure I'll ever manage to leave Sacramento. I'm having a hard time giving up some of my dreams, but the sooner I do it, the happier I will probably be.

I'm not sure what this means for right now. I feel like I'm spending time waiting for my life to start. Obviously, life is going on right now, and nothing new is going to happen unless I make it happen. I'm just not sure what I want to happen. Perhaps once I figure that out, everything will fall into place.