Sunday afternoon Pip, TP and I stamped our passports and drove up the motorway to meet the new man in Bindy’s life. Only a week old and William is like a tiny buddha, blissfully untouched by life. He is loved, wanted, adored. My heart ached to see B so happy. This on the day the sunday papers included an article stating that one in four women of my age are choosing not to have children. It came up today in the car. I am not sure how to reconcile the two things.
There has always been some ambiguity for me around the breeding question. When I was engaged I found myself unexpectedly staring at a blue strip and then weeks later, the bloody loss. Only the feeling of empty is as empty as searching for signs of life on an empty screen. And so my state of childlessness has happened while I was out in the world doing, learning, being, living, healing. Since I found myself unexpectedly staring at unmarried, the child question has been almost too big. I would be lying if I said the role of unencumbered, mad aunty sas didn’t hold some appeal. Equally, I have the (quite normal I think) hormone induced panic attacks when I contemplate what it would be like to never experience motherhood. Or never meeting anyone that might want to have children with me.
As my life progresses, I realise that my future family may not be the ‘nuclear option’. That my person may come as a package deal. Or life’s events may offer me the choice of another path. I always felt that motherhood would be sometime in the future. When I was settled. As yet, I haven’t been prepared to settle for anything. Not any place. Or any person. Looking into William’s big blue eyes yesterday, I had that same instinctive sensation as I get when I hug Lisa’s boys close, when I met my niece. It is a sensation that is becoming more familiar; the love of a tiny life, a tabula rasa, is a fierce, unique and wondrous gift.
At the end of last year, when I was unsettled, restless, uncertain, I spoke to a friend of Lisa who is gifted with a sixth sense. Among other things, she mentioned a baby. Probably next year. Tabula rasa indeed.
Comments
I say embrace your unencumbered life. Though my blog be a record of my dewy eyed love days when I could gaze at my boy for hours if i could, what my blog doesn’t talk about is the pain of birth, of breastfeeding, of fatigue so dense it makes me forget my own name, of how some days I just want to give him away to a passing stranger and never look back, and the guilt that goes with those feelings. Being a mother has opened me up most of all to the possibility of heart break – a bad day can have me on edge for a week or more. And then there’s the sense of failure for not being perfect like petra bagust-way. of being a walking disaster zone who could leak tears at any moment.
LOVE the quote Sas! In addition to Kimberley’s comments, I would also add the sickening fear that comes with a child… that something might happen to them, that you won’t be there/be able to protect them from harm (physical or emotional); that they’ll be hurt, disrespected, lost, struggle, unappreciated, etc etc. I can’t watch anything on TV anymore (fiction or no) where someone gets hurt … that person is someone’s child … my child … Alex … and my heart squeezes with fear. I lost my wonderful Grandad a few weeks ago, and at night found it hard to sleep from thinking about him, and the feeling that Alex was too far away from me (in the next room). It makes me want to hold him and never let him go. And, with that in mind, it brings such an enormous respect and appreciation for our Moms! To have, more than likely, felt all this and more, and still allowed us the space we needed to experiment, feel, disagree, make mistakes and grow. I can only hope to live up to their precedents :).
Thank you for the real perspective. My heart goes out to you though I always thought Bagust was a little too good to be true :)I have just read wish jar and Keri has posted this quote: ‘In the house of a newborn, there are no walls. No doors, no clocks, no meals, no chores, no day, no night, none of the familiar coordinates we use to navigate our lives. We bring our babies home, and then the floor gives way and the roof collapses. Adrift in disorientation, I beging to sing’ – Karen Maezen Miller