The We of Me

The We of Me.  This is a phrase from “The Member of The Wedding”, a book I read in junior high school that I remember intensely disliking at the time, but one I’ve been thinking about re-reading lately.  This phrase from the book has always stayed with me.  What, exactly, is my we of me?  What is anybody’s?  At what point – when we marry, when we have children – are we no longer alone, or are we always alone?  Is being alone a bad thing?

When I think of myself as a child I think of myself alone in a tiny studio apartment in midtown Manhattan reading a book – probably part of the Little House series or the Narnia books.  It’s not to say I didn’t have friends – I always did – but I have spent a huge portion of my life by myself.  Yesterday after brunch with The Friend Who Unintentionally Makes Me Feel Like My Life is Shit, I spent the entire day sitting in the back yard reading, and then sitting on the couch watching last year’s birthday present, Mad Men seasons 1-3, and the solitude was great.  I have lived alone on and off all my life, but after buying this house ten years ago have always lived here alone.  This may change in a few months.  How do I feel about this?

Right now I have no mixed feelings about sharing my house and my life with a child.  It seems totally natural and a great new chapter in my life – especially after all the trials I have (and still will) taken to get here.  But I certainly am curious about how it will feel to be so intertwined with someone else – I mean, this person will be my BLOOD, for chrissakes, not just some guy I met on Match.com – what is that going to feel like?  To look at a toddler’s eyes and see myself, my mother, my father, or some undefinable quality that may be the donor dad’s, or his mother, or his father?  To have someone so genetically connected to me seems so strange.  The only other people that linked to me are my mother and father – and since neither of them are in my life, I’m sort of floating alone out here in this gene pool, if you catch my drift.  Everyone else in my family is removed by half – cousins, or half-sisters, or half-sisters that aren’t actually related to me by blood at all but who I refer to as my half-sister.  And none of this has ever mattered, don’t get me wrong.  But it is interesting to think of having a person around who is half of me.  Kind of a trip.

Will it be weird when I say the word “we” and I’m not referring to me and my dog?  Will it be weird when people say “you” and mean me and my kid?  Will it be a struggle to find an identity as a mom after all these years of being the Single Chick, or will it come naturally?  Will I not recognize myself?  Will it be bad?

I always have this fear that my personality will suddenly and dramatically change and I won’t recognize myself, yet this never seems to happen.  I think the main reason for this fear is watching my mother slowly descend into mental illness – to one minute be the funny, cynical, rational person we knew her to be, then the next be this crazy cut-off Bible thumper with no compassion or empathy.  I know this could never be me, yet the fear of change is strong in me.  And I can think of no greater change than transitioning from Single Chick at 39-years-old to First Time Mom.

I’ve been so focused on getting – and staying – pregnant, that I’ve given almost no thought to things like this (well, not since I was in the “theory” phase back in March, before fear of infertility took over).  And I still don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the end result – motherhood.  I won’t let myself, not yet.  Right now it’s just one day at a time with no blood on my panty liner.  That’s pretty much all I can handle at the moment. 

So I guess the big abstract question is, what is the We of Me?  Will I still be me when there’s a kid around?  Will I be something else, but better?  Will I be me plus motherhood?  Or will motherhood totally take over and turn me into something else?  Right now I consider myself lucky to even get the chance to find out.