Tick Tock

I am evidently reproductively on the shelf.

I have most recently been sincerely (I’m not being facetious) informed that no matter what I decide to do with myself, whether or not I have children, or whether or not I wait too late to have children, or if I have none, or adopt, or just have more dogs, everyone is just fine with whatever I decide.

And you know, in a way that I can’t describe to you, that went all the way down to my core, plucked one tiny, low string, and made me very unhappy, because it seems to say….

It seems to measure up in so many words, and yet without saying, the ways that I could have possibly failed each life to cross my path. It seems to say that all I have built, and all I have lived is worth nothing.

And yet a study was released last week that said that couples without children are actually happier than couples with children. Consider the trauma that your kids have put you through and give me the honest selfish answer – are you really happier now than you were before (or are you going to give me some bullshit about being more fulfilled?)? And still more studies are being released that indicate that the population in Europe and Japan and China is actually, finally, in decline. The science of the ebb and flow of life.

It’s funny how we try and manipulate life. We live in houses, drive cars, earn money, go to work – all human concepts. Need for shelter, need for money, need for status, need for affection, for love, for self acceptance – these are all human concepts. We try and bend life around our needs, as it suits us. My dogs don’t need fancy collars; they don’t know the difference between a $5 collar and a $20 collar; people perceive a difference between the two, and assume that the one that is more expensive is better made because of the price. Don’t you assume things that are inexpensive are cheaply made?

I used to take great comfort in the fact that the night sky was like a big blankie, and that under that blankie that covered the whole earth was someone else just like me. The older I become, the more I feel that the blankie was an illusion. The blankie only applies to you when you are a blank slate, and the older you become the less blankie space you have until one day you’re out on your own. Consequently, some days I feel that no one understands me, that no one is like me, and that I am, well….a rock, I am an Isssslaaanddd (thanks, Simon and Garfunkel).

Coming back to it: being married, having a baby and a family of my own and some stability isn’t going to instantly make me into a happy and content person, ya know. I don’t think some rush of post natal hormones is going to make me into a permanent Stepford wife, if that’s what anyone was hoping.

And now for something completely different.

This isn’t quite what I wanted to say. A commenter had chastised me earlier for changing my writing style – I have, I admit the effort was deliberate. I wanted to stop using this as a diary (I whine too much to you guys) and more to practice my writing. However, in doing that, I found the things that made me want to write – all my emotions – all went away, and consequently my writing suffered. I can tell stories, I can write about things….but the joy of the internet is that what feels personal to you when you write it is no longer personal once you hit the “publish now” keys in Blogger. You write things in the heat of the moment, things that are orderly and logical to you at the time but later make no sense, or you find after reflection you wish to recant, but as a society we don’t like folks to change their minds, so it becomes hard to do in a public forum like this.

I’m telling you, as I wander about, that I know my writing has suffered. I’m struggling to find a way to write, that allows me to tap that emotional side of me while still being moderately creative (all I can lay claim to).

Have patience.