Been thinking a lot about family lately, and friends, and the concept of community in general. Since I was so isolated for so long due to being ill, it was a real breath of fresh air this week to resume some of my normal activities. I DJ’d a club Thursday night and then went to a party Friday night. Both nights involved a lot of people coming up to me and congratulating me in hushed tones. I wanted to ask everyone, “who told you?” just out of curiosity but didn’t, because it doesn’t really matter, and it’s public knowledge now anyway. But yes, the positive support from my community has been great. Again, I think being older, perpetually single, and someone who’s given a lot to the community helps people be happy for me – and I’m sure seeing how happy I am helps them gauge their feelings about it. Anyone who wonders, “was it an accident?” probably can tell by the look on my face that it most certainly was not and I’m thrilled.
Oftentimes these days I ask myself, “what would you be doing right now if not for this?” and the answer always comes back, “you know, I really don’t know!” And then it makes me think that I probably would have come to this conclusion whether my aunt dying kicked me into gear or not – because at a certain point having a child really is the only thing left to do. That’s the great thing about being an older mom – I feel “done” in my life, as in, I’ve done all the things I wanted to do, so it doesn’t have to be about me anymore. I won’t feel robbed of experiences or frustrated. I’ve had a lot of relationships, I’ve done everything professionally I wanted to, I’ve traveled the world, I’ve met a lot of people. It’s time for it to be about someone else for a while, and I feel completely ready for change and a whole new life experience. Someone mentioned to me, “your life is going to change a lot,” and I said, “I know! Isn’t it great?” I don’t think that’s the response he was looking for, ha ha! But what can I say? When you’re ready you’re ready. Some people are never ready, and that’s ok, too. I’d rather people be honest about what they want in their lives than just go along with the herd. But I always knew I wanted children; it was always on my mind. So it was something I had to *at least* try to make happen.
I don’t want to disrespect my former life and paint myself in any way as lonely, pathetic, “incomplete”, or anything like that. I hate to make my former self sound like some desperate cliché, because that’s not true. I was happy in my life before. But so much of life is about how you feel about your future (pretty much our entire economic system depends on how optimistic people are feeling at any given moment), and that was one problem I had – my future just seemed to stretch out ahead of me like this vast void. Other than my international trips, I really didn’t have anything to look forward to, and then when my income took a dip I wasn’t able to afford that anymore, either, and I was really left with a situation on my hands. What, exactly, am I going to do with myself for the next 30, 40+ years? At a certain age you can’t really do radical things like sell everything you own and move to another country and start over (well, you can, but “Eat Pray Love” notwithstanding, I would guess most of the time this doesn’t work out so great), and for me I’ve spent so many years carefully cultivating my life here in LA, the idea of chucking it all because I’m bored seemed reckless to say the least. So, then what? Continue internet dating in the 1% chance you might meet someone halfway decent? Keep setting up groups and clubs that everyone drops out of once they have families of their own? Become an animal hoarder? What? And none of this solves the problem of wanting so much to be a mom but not having a partner to make this happen. So a wish and a prayer and a catheter and a vial later and here we are.
On one of my favorite TV shows, “Locked Up Abroad”, one of people profiled, a woman who spent time in a Peruvian jail for drug smuggling, said something I’ve never forgotten. In talking about her own greed and desire to make an easy buck, she says later in life she realized “it’s not what you have, but who you have.” I think I finally have enough maturity to recognize that it really is who, not what, that makes you happy in life. So to my family, and my friends, and my blog family, and my little unborn nubbin, thanks for being my “who”!
When I read through this post I found myself nodding in total agreement. Mostly when you were talking about feeling like you've "done" what you wanted career wise, traveled the world, etc.., and there's nothing else you'd rather do now. I can totally relate and feel the EXACT same way. I thought that perhaps my ambition left me, I was starting to become lazy, maybe depressed....but after hearing your thoughts it makes me feel better knowing that I'm not alone!! Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I do find it interesting that as single women we are made to question our motivations about wanting children - whereas nobody would ever ask a married woman who said she wanted a baby, "what is this really about?" I asked myself the same things - am I depressed, am I giving up on life, am I just lonely? Is this an excuse to not try new things, build new businesses, etc? I even heard one SMC tell about how she saw a therapist who tried to work with her on her "compulsive need for a child" and suggested she "work with children" instead - again, nobody would say those things to a married woman! So I finally came to the conclusion that it's totally natural and healthy to want a child and I don't have to apologize for it or question my motives. At least I'm not doing it to keep some man from leaving me, ha ha!
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