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carose59I Wasn't Interested in Being Happier But in Growing More Poignantly, Becomingly, Meaningfully Unhappy. *
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I've been reading this book, Because I Said So, essays written by mothers.
I've known since at least high school that I was never going to be a mother because I don't have what it takes. I have no patience (ask the cat). I'm too self-absorbed (you could ask Pat if she was still around to ask). I have very definite ideas about what children need and I'm quite sure I don't have it to give. I'd look at my cousin getting pregnant and getting pregnant and getting pregnant, and all I could think was, why? Why would anybody want to do that, why would anybody want something in their life that was there forever to worry about? Who needs more responsibility and anxiety and feeling like you're doing it all wrong? (And having spent a number of years worrying about Pat, I'm even surer of that now.)
It occurred to me the other night that whenever I thought about being a mother, I saw myself doing it alone. I saw myself being the only one looking after this poor child that I would love more than anything and that I would have given all the craziness my genes had to offer, and I would be unable to protect it from all the things that hurt me. Doing my best and my best would not be good enough. Why should I think anything different? It's exactly what I saw my mother doing. I never saw a father in the picture. I don't even know where this baby was supposed to have come from. Heathcliff?
(And I'm unwilling to give up my position as designated child. I listen to my mother and my aunt and my cousins talk about kids and I think they have no idea. When my cousin was talking about being a surrogate mother, my mother's first concern was, will she be able to give up the baby? Mine was, what will her own kids think of this? Will they be able to understand that Mommy giving away this baby doesn't mean Mommy will give one of us away? I said this to my mother; it had never occurred to her.)
Last night--well, early this morning, when I was lying in bed after spending an hour in the bathroom being very, very sick, I had the a/c turned down to 70 and 2 fans blowing on me so that the room and I were nice and cold and I could wrap myself in both a sheet and a flannel sheet and feel snuggly. I tried to persuade the cat to join me, but he pretty much lives in the corner of my room now, under the clothes that hang there.
Anyway, I was feeling very sick and I was lying wrapped in my sheets with a pillow on either side of me (it makes my back feel better and also it makes me feel like I'm not alone in bed. It's a trick I discovered after Pat died) and wishing I wasn't alone in my bed, that someone was holding me, loving me. And I understood that I've always believed that Pat loving me was a fluke, that I never expected there to be anybody who loved me. (At eighteen my life-plan was to write like crazy for the next twelve years and kill myself at thirty.) The fact that I had Pat for the twenty-five years I did have her was just a fluke, a detour. It will not be happening again. Alone is my natural state, so I'd better get used to it.
It's a very weird feeling.
I miss Pat. I'm lonely.
I would very much like to have someone love me. But saying that feels like saying I would very much like to be tall and beautiful, which is true but so what? Wanting doesn't make it my natural state, or something I can have. Alone doesn't feel good, but alone feels right.
* Emily Fox Gordon
-:- -:- -:-
I've been reading this book, Because I Said So, essays written by mothers.
I've known since at least high school that I was never going to be a mother because I don't have what it takes. I have no patience (ask the cat). I'm too self-absorbed (you could ask Pat if she was still around to ask). I have very definite ideas about what children need and I'm quite sure I don't have it to give. I'd look at my cousin getting pregnant and getting pregnant and getting pregnant, and all I could think was, why? Why would anybody want to do that, why would anybody want something in their life that was there forever to worry about? Who needs more responsibility and anxiety and feeling like you're doing it all wrong? (And having spent a number of years worrying about Pat, I'm even surer of that now.)
It occurred to me the other night that whenever I thought about being a mother, I saw myself doing it alone. I saw myself being the only one looking after this poor child that I would love more than anything and that I would have given all the craziness my genes had to offer, and I would be unable to protect it from all the things that hurt me. Doing my best and my best would not be good enough. Why should I think anything different? It's exactly what I saw my mother doing. I never saw a father in the picture. I don't even know where this baby was supposed to have come from. Heathcliff?
(And I'm unwilling to give up my position as designated child. I listen to my mother and my aunt and my cousins talk about kids and I think they have no idea. When my cousin was talking about being a surrogate mother, my mother's first concern was, will she be able to give up the baby? Mine was, what will her own kids think of this? Will they be able to understand that Mommy giving away this baby doesn't mean Mommy will give one of us away? I said this to my mother; it had never occurred to her.)
Last night--well, early this morning, when I was lying in bed after spending an hour in the bathroom being very, very sick, I had the a/c turned down to 70 and 2 fans blowing on me so that the room and I were nice and cold and I could wrap myself in both a sheet and a flannel sheet and feel snuggly. I tried to persuade the cat to join me, but he pretty much lives in the corner of my room now, under the clothes that hang there.
Anyway, I was feeling very sick and I was lying wrapped in my sheets with a pillow on either side of me (it makes my back feel better and also it makes me feel like I'm not alone in bed. It's a trick I discovered after Pat died) and wishing I wasn't alone in my bed, that someone was holding me, loving me. And I understood that I've always believed that Pat loving me was a fluke, that I never expected there to be anybody who loved me. (At eighteen my life-plan was to write like crazy for the next twelve years and kill myself at thirty.) The fact that I had Pat for the twenty-five years I did have her was just a fluke, a detour. It will not be happening again. Alone is my natural state, so I'd better get used to it.
It's a very weird feeling.
I miss Pat. I'm lonely.
I would very much like to have someone love me. But saying that feels like saying I would very much like to be tall and beautiful, which is true but so what? Wanting doesn't make it my natural state, or something I can have. Alone doesn't feel good, but alone feels right.
* Emily Fox Gordon