Life in 3-D: A Dream Deferred.

Ever since my friends first started having babies, like a freaking decade ago, I soon realized not all women are created equal.  When a man’s buddy becomes a father, he realizes that the new dad will be less available for late night drinking and spur of the moment road trips to Vegas. For girlfriends, it is way more intense.  Enjoy that Baby Shower, ladies, because this is the last you will see of your mother-to-be friend as you know her.  Her life and your friendship will never be the same. 

Of course, each new mom changes in different ways.  Some have a spiritual awakening and the girl you used to call when you wanted to do something poorly advised and spur of the moment now might be going to Bible Study or volunteering at VBS.  And the old friend is left wondering… what the hell?  I’ve caught the girl on her knees before, but that was totally by accident.  (Sorry… blasphemous humor).  Or some women really let themselves go.  Like they have broken up not only with the hairstylist but have also blackballed Lady Clairol.  Come on, Ladies, this is America.  You don’t have to go gray or have saggy boobs if you don’t want to.  This is the land of at free and the home of the Wonder bra.  And this is why I lie about my age.  I am not embarrassed of my age; I am embarrassed of others of my age.

Why Baby and Pregnancy Facebook Updates Make Me Ache.

If I “tagged” you in this post, it is because you responded to my Facebook post on this topic earlier and I wanted you to see my “full” response.

My first edit was some kind of funny, but also kind of mean jokes about mothers and the rest of female population.  But that is not where my heart is.  Sorry, this is not very funny.

I am posting this even though it is kind of personal… but… telling the truth, being open and honest is what really resonates with my “readers.”  Here it goes.

Women say when they have a child; their lives are never the same.  I am sure that is true.  I can only imagine that every aspect of your life alters and you even your memories fall into the category of before and after kids.

One of the major changes I have noticed with every new mother is that their children are first and foremost in their mind.  Their attention is forever divided. Sometimes I feel when I am talking about petty work crap, new fashion trends, boys, or even the crisis in the Gulf (choose one, they’re all pretty fucked right now) I feel as though I am just filling the air with noise when the care and nurturing of the little humans they have bore to the world are so much more precious and important.  Who gives a shit about leggings, really?

There is a gap…. I would even say a chasm of difference between women who have children and women who do not.  It as if we can hardly relate.  Women without children know what free time is.  We probably have a whole beauty regime where mothers, especially of small children, just hope to get a shower in a day.  Women without children still probably have a working gag reflux and are still repulsed at vomit and feces.  And yes… it does bother us when you change your baby’s diaper on our upholstery or bed.  Put down a towel, for Christ’s sake.  I’m serious.  It grosses me out. 

I think both camps have a “grass is always greener complex.”  A world without children is probably neater, posher, and probably less smelly, and a world with children is probably busier, more hectic, less selfish, but probably a lot more love.  You belong to someone and they belong to you.  I am typing this currently in my one bedroom apartment with my dog.  All I can hear is the air conditioner and people going up and down the stairs outside in the hallway.  I hear mothers complain “I can’t hear myself think.”  That is all I can hear.

You want to know why I can still spend so much time on the treadmill. Why I fight gray and gravity like the Nazis on the Western front in a grainy WWII movie we watched in high school?  It is because I am trying to trick Mother Nature and suitable real-life sperm donors in believing in my fertility and desirability. I am not saying that once I get knocked up I am all a sudden going to let myself go.  I think I will always have a love/hate relationship with carbs and I refuse to gray until I am good and ready… which right now I believe is just as soon as I step into my grave. 

I know my Biological Clock is ticking.  I can even hear it now over the air conditioner and the people in the stairwell.  My boyfriend, I’m sure, hears it too.  He is younger than me and I don’t want to force the issue, but I feel like it is still there.  I don’t want to burden him with my fertility, but it is always in the back of my mind.  Before him, I did not purposely exclude men who had children, but men with vasectomies definitely gave me pause.  Even if they did it for their ex-wives, they did have a surgery that would prevent any future generations for a reason.  Yeah, it can be reversed, but still.  Why would they want to get mixed up with a woman like me who definitely wanted children?

My ex-husband I, for various reasons, were never able to have children.  Damn shame.  Really.  We can play the “what-if” game, but it is fruitless… like our marriage.  Sorry, gallows humor.  People say “Well, you’re lucky you never had kids.”  I know where they are coming from, but be 35, single, and childless when you didn’t intend to be the latter two and then you tell me how lucky I am.

Nursing women say that there is a way a newborn cries that makes their milk flow even if it is not their child.  Believe it or not, and I don’t know if this is a psycho-somatic thing or what, but I feel that tug too, only it is tugging at nothing.  There is just this physical pull in my chest to want to help the baby out in some way even though I can’t.  Maybe that is just primal, like the instinct to suckle, flinch, or stop at a shoe sale.  There is also this little crook in my waist where my nephew when he was little used to sit and wrap his legs around me laying his blonde little head on my chest.  He wasn’t mine and I refused to get too attached, but when he was a baby, he looked so much like my ex that it made me ache.  I believed the child loved me in some family sort of way and it hurts to know I will probably never see him again.

I knew I was falling out of love with my ex-husband when I no longer looked in his eyes and imagined what our children would look like.  I no longer imagined an angelic blonde boy and a fiercely beautiful dark haired girl.  There was a point when I looked at him and our future was cloudy.  That is when my heart started turning away from him and I knew the end was near.

My future is unknown right now.  I feel as though I am on the right path as long as I don’t fuck it up.  I have to not let fear or insecurity get in the way of a good thing.  I have to have faith.

Now what I see in my lover’s eyes and I hope this doesn’t scare him, are the babies we would make together.  We are arguably more genetically similar so it is not so much of a guessing game.  I see fiercely beautiful, tall, strong, intelligent, most likely willful, green-eyed, dark-haired children.  I anticipate his nervousness and pride holding his own newborn baby.  I know he would defend his family against all that assails us and love us with the same passion and dedication he has for everything else worth fighting for in his life. 

That is in the not too far distant future (hopefully) but I don’t want to get ahead of myself here.

And yes, of course I am rushing it!  (More on that later.) 

**** I had a boyfriend when I first posted this.