Member-only story
FAKE NUMBER
I had just moved over two thousand miles away from home to San Francisco. I was homesick and upset. I had been interviewing with tech companies, and one of them was promising. My side hustle as a consultant paid good, and it helped a lot with my living expenses. I had quit my job with the pharmaceutical company I was working for. I decided to forge a different path for myself. It started with the brave decision of packing my things and moving. I missed my family badly. My sisters were in college. One was in Minnesota, the other was in Virginia. We were close.
My mom called every day to check on me, this evening she was on the phone as usual talking my ears off.
“Maybe you should go out, meet new people, you will feel better. You are not getting any younger, I need grand babies,” she said.
I rolled my eyes. As the oldest child, there were a lot of expectations for me. I had to be an example to my siblings. All my life, I felt like an assistant parent for my parents. I basically helped them raise my sisters.
“Mom!” I said, sounding bored.
“When I was your age, I was married and you were three years old,” she said.
I had heard that narrative all my life. Being single at thirty three was not a curse. It was the…
