to be or not to be: mother

the great debate, the twinkle in my eye, the pit in my stomach

Content warning: Eating disorders, child-loss, and addiction.

Today, I was standing in my kitchen, innocently preparing breakfast, when my brain spontaneously decided to name my fictitious future child. The one I have all but sworn to never have.

Maybe it’s my age and hormones doing their thing to preserve the species, though I wish I could tell it that we’ve pretty much got that taken care of (and then some).

But nonetheless, the name came to me in a moment where I certainly wasn’t thinking about anything other than my dogs and the tea boiling in the kettle. I felt a pang of pain, remorse, and even, much to my horror, some longing.

It’s the perfect name. Using my husband’s middle name, which we love and has good family ties, and my sister P’s middle name, which is a flower. And there it was. And there she was, the beautiful little curly brunette-haired child with the single left dimple courtesy of R and the dark attention-grabbing eyebrows courtesy of me. She’s as fiery and untamable as her parents. Her lust for life, untenable.

If she’s anything like me, she skipped crawling and now runs through our home like she has somewhere to be and she’s already late for it. Stumbling her way to that elusive destination, clear only in her mind’s eye, furniture corners and walls be damned.

If she’s like her dad, too, then she’s empathetic and kind. She can tell when we’re sad and comes to snuggle a bit closer. We breathe in her sweet scent as we kiss the top of her honey brown ringlets. She may even be a little shy, sure of herself, but naturally unsure of others, needing some extra encouragement to put herself out there to the same degree with which she comes alive in the safe space of our home.

And knowing us, she is our entire world. We would fall on a million swords for her, we would have a hard time not beating up her bullies, and her word would be law. Her tiny spirit would color in the pages of our life with shades and hues we never knew existed. We’d be her reverent servants, for now and for always.

But also knowing us, I think she would hurt. The world is not made for her spirit; it doesn’t know how to sit with all that she is and can be. It tries to tame her, to keep her quiet because it senses her power, and to maintain a balance, it must challenge her right to use it.

She’s tough, our girl, and we hold the weight of her hurt together as a family. She is never too much in our eyes, but we know all too well how this hurt affected us, and it’s hard to overcome the instinct to protect and defend our little deity at all costs.

And I think, above all, this is what scares me most. I think R & I, circumstantially won the life lottery in that we overcame our burdens and are all the better for them. But we each have family members and generations of examples enough to know that we were the exception to our relative family rules. And we didn’t make it out without battle scars of our own.

I don’t know how, in the depths of my disorder, flirting with death, my mom could watch me wasting away before her eyes. I know she didn’t handle it well, and I know her own scars linger from this time…

And then there is my brother, dying at 29 after a decade-long substance abuse battle. I have never heard my stepdad cry the way he did that day. It’s been three years, and he told me recently he is alive for me, my mom, and my other brother, but never again will he be alive for himself. The finality and gravity of this statement haunt me still.

Since I was 12, I recognized that the bloodline needed to end with me. At least on my dad’s side. I knew enough to know that I would be doing my lineage and the world a service by stopping things here. And for most years, my younger sister, P, seemed to find peace with this notion on her own. Until recently, at 22, deciding she might want to be a mother after all.

Now that she has a boyfriend, she thinks she’s going to marry and is getting her first taste of adulthood and a sense of herself when she’s not actively traumatized by her parents. So, all things can change. But she would be the best mother. She already is a mother. Ever the gracious caretaker and lover, my sister. She has been taking care of me, and I her, since the day she was born.

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It didn’t cross my path as a possibility for my life until about a year ago, 6 months before we got married, I was in a conversation with R about how exactly we would get married. There were lots of factors to consider, given that I wanted nothing more than to elope, and R was hoping a more traditional wedding would yield a heartfelt moment between him and his parents (it wouldn’t, they aren’t capable of it).

And somewhere within this debate, and 9 years into our relationship, R proclaims he can’t really see his life without kids….

For 8 years, I had been adamant that I was not the person to be with if he wanted kids. As heartbreaking as this would be, it’s important that he understand that and do what he has to do for himself. There is nothing in me selfish enough to wish him an unfulfilled life just so I could keep him forever.

And R, too, would be an incredible father. He would be all that he never got from his parentage and so much more. He would build the treehouse and play the sports. He would read the books and write her new ones. He’d paint murals on her walls and dress up like a princess for weekly tea, and I’d find him sleeping in her bed in the middle of the night if she had a nightmare.

I am getting emotional at the sheer consideration of this.

I think I’d envy their bond in the best way. He’s all I could ever hope to offer my child, and to deprive him of that love feels like the cruelest thing I could ever do.

Yes, a lot of my concern about having kids is rooted in fear and all that I have witnessed of my family and of the world in my 28 years. I used to tell my sister and R alike that no child asks to be born. Our existence by default was non-consensual. And that’s how I knew, with certainty, that our parents owed us all and we owed them nothing in return.

Not in a cruel way, I love my family. But when we’re being held to impossible standards to earn their love, I’m calling bullshit. Love from a parent to a child should be unconditional. These imperfect humans decided to create an imperfect human for their own selfish reasons, and therefore, it’s their responsibility to love it and provide for it to the best of their ability. Forever. Not while we are cute little babies. Not for 18 years.

Forever.

I don’t fear my ability to do this.

I don’t fear R’s ability to do this.

I do fear our desire to do it.

Having faced death repeatedly within the first 20 years of my life, and again, it feels like when we lost my brother, I understand the importance of living for oneself.

Even within my 10-year relationship, and the varying states of co-dependency we have navigated. I have always been a fierce protector of my independence. I have always been able to advocate for myself better than most adults can understand. It’s innate to me. It’s what makes me, me.

And I understand motherhood to be the ultimate sacrifice. I don’t think I would want it to be anything less. The minute those two (is it two?) pink stripes appear, or the adoption papers are approved, I’m theirs.

But do I want to be anyone else’s?

Haven’t I worked so so hard to be my own?

But in the work of becoming my own, I do find myself contemplating the reality of children more and more, too. Both in having them and in accepting that I never will.

I sit on that fence. I watch my husband long for it but not be ready for it himself. I wonder if anyone ever is, and if I should keep using that as an excuse to avoid the deciding conversation.

Part of me sometimes wishes it would just happen and make the decision for me, but then I think pregnancy would ruin me, and I use the kind of birth control that is fairly non-negotiable without decisive action.

I am learning to love life. I believe that stress and discord are the ultimate disease makers. I also believe that having a child and loving them so much would be both an unimaginable joy and a resignation to worrying about them for the rest of my life.

And for R, these would only be magnified because he lives in the extremes of his emotions. No grey, just unfettered feeling, passionate and intense for-better-or-for-worse. That scares me, too.

I wouldn’t survive losing them. I know that.

I’m not sure I’ll ever understand how people afford to have kids.

Worst yet, what if they grow up to be republican? The horror.

[I jest to lighten the mood here ;).]

So I sit on this fence. Warring with biology, emotion, and logic. With instincts pulling me in two opposing directions.

A decision with no compromise.

No refunds or exchanges.

I’ll be okay either way, but I know that I’ll always wonder to some degree what if.

Life is full of what-ifs in light of the choices we commit to. But I never want that what-if to be discernible by anyone, let alone my fictitious little her.

I grew up both extremely wanted and extremely unwanted. I never needed to be told either; I just knew, and it played a hand in shaping me. Kids always know.

Is my life enough without her?

Am I enough for her?

Her name dances on the edges of my brain, a little melody of what could but may never be.

P.S. this was a hard one. Something I struggle with more than I thought I ever would. I invite (and need) perspectives from all sides of this spectrum in the comments!

anyway, here it is…

-June

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