My 36th! No whoops, I just celebrated my 37th birthday! :)
After turning 32, I‘ve usually been off by a year or two when asked my age. The years, the age, it all just seems clustered together under one big roof with an even bigger thirtysomething sign on top.
Geez! With my friends both 10+ years my juniors and 10+ years my seniors, I guess I‘m seriously stuck at 28, or I just stopped sensing the age difference when I hit that late 20‘s mark.
My greatest age-revelation-triggers are seeing my friends’ children. Then the notion of age really hits me. They grow up so fast! You turn around and they are little adults all of a sudden. And when I realize that people my age are now running the little town I grew up in, and old friends have seats in parliament, age also hits me. Don‘t get me wrong, age doesn‘t make me sad. I do get a bit nostalgic when listening to Pearl Jam and remembering pre-Facebook times. But age doesn’t make me sad, no, maybe more melancholic, as it just reminds me of how differently our lives can turn out to be, compared to our dreams when growing up... how we thought things would turn out for us.
Like when I was in high school I was determined to go ‘all the way’ educationally wise. Acquiring a Ph.D. was definitely one of my missions. At least a Master’s degree. I mean, that was a given! I just didn’t know which subject it would be. And I was going to have three children. Even two psychics I visited in those days, saw me have those 3 children ;)
So let's see, how did it really turn out for me? My educational background to date is a bit colorful. One laden with ECT’s but nevertheless doesn’t qualify me with a mere Bachelor’s degree.
And I still don’t have those three children. Not even "A" child.
Oh God, to be completely honest, this whole baby-making thing is a bit of an issue. I just don’t feel like having a baby right now. Yet with every year that passes statistics for being able to conceive reverse in my favor. So that’s kind of a bummer. Well, frankly it’s more than a bummer. This expiration date thing is actually that internally irritating that I got a huge kick out of Claire’s answer, Robin Wright’s character from House of Cards when she was asked by a mother whether she ever regretted not having had children. Her answer was: “Do you ever regret having had children”. I was all “Bam! You go girl! You tell her” swallowing my Sauvignon Blanc on Sunday night.
And I have fantasized about writing a book for some time now, entitled '30 something and childless – Though having the man of my dreams in my arms', or ‘between my legs’ depending on the profile of the readers I would be after. I have yet to check out how many of those already exist though.
Oooh oooohhh!! I dreamt about that book last night! I was in a bookstore, after closing, reading a chapter from it. It wasn’t finished yet but I was still offered to read a passage, and I got great feedback from the wide-eyed audience, mostly consisting of ladies my age.
No seriously! I mean, what if, just maybe, my boyfriend and I, the love of my life and I, decide to stay childless? Maybe. It could be. I don’t know!! I love children! I’ve been a mother in so many past lives, and remember the joy so vividly. But now, in this life, only age makes us think about having a baby. When making love we’re not trying to conceive. We are getting to know each other on an even deeper level, on a profound soul level. We are still living the story of the two lovers, the story of “just the two of us”, just me and him. And we are enjoying it immensely.
If there wasn’t an age stamp on child making, we wouldn’t be thinking of it at all at this point in our lives. Even though we fell in love more than a decade ago. It’s just not time yet! Our minds and hearts are occupied with other kinds of creation-making. Creation-making which makes us very content and happy at the moment. Fulfilled. We are both highly creative entrepreneurs, enjoying our childless life. And we almost feel guilty about it. We feel like we still have our whole lives in front of us, and of course, we do, but if we want to grow a family we don’t, as we’re gonna have to make a decision, and that’s where that bummer comes in. Who’s rocking the boat?
Me hitting 37 drastically decreased our chances of becoming parents to our own children! And that’s what’s irritating and frankly, quite unfair - To be put on the spot like that, by my own body!
So, seriously, did God not want us to be career women?
How I wish it was the most normal thing to have a baby at 40 or 50. That we women wouldn’t have an expiration date on creating new life within our bodies! But then we would have to beocme much older right? So our children wouldn't lose us too soon! That's also heartbreaking. There seems to be something off, something scewed with this whole formula in todays life.
There are so many of us wild women who are acquiring our higher educational degrees way into our thirties. In our twenties, we were hungry for adventures and thirsty for the juice of life. We spent years widening our horizons, moving to different countries, testing different career paths, and falling deeply and crazy in love! What quenches such thirst? Today we want to be free as the birds, freelance or start our own companies, keep traveling the world, and expand on all levels. I honestly don’t see how we are supposed to fit baby-making into the picture, especially when our chances to conceive plumage after 32. (I hope those statistics aren’t right!)
And Ohm Goddess, it’s not that we don’t want to have children! Oh no! Not at all. We are so looking forward to experiencing the awe and wonder of getting to know our offspring. Watch them grow and blossom into adulthood. We are such motherly souls. We love life, every nook and cranny of this gorgeous world we live in. We embrace the notion of motherhood and can’t wait to introduce and enjoy with our children the beauty of life, and all the wonders it has to offer. The sweet taste of newly baked waffles, and the aroma of hot chocolate filling the air. Getting our fingers sticky making jam from the berries we just picked together. Play hooky at bedtime so we can watch the stars twinkle in the sky as they are just so mesmerizingly beautiful. Not to mention listening to music, reading books, and marveling at the buzzing life all around, the insects, the birds, the cats, the whales. It must be the most beautiful thing in the world to get to know the souls who choose you to be their mother.
So you see, for me and many of my wild adventurous sisters, this expiration date on our fertility is heartbreaking. Even to the extent that the whole baby talk just makes us sad and we become hostile and grumpy: “Me? No, I don’t want to have kids. I couldn’t bear all those sleepless nights and no privacy. And all the fuss taking them to practice, being the brave one when they hurt themselves. And maybe they need glasses and are terrified of the dentist. And god help me, surviving their adolescence! No, I rather just want to stay childless, marvel in my freedom, no attachments, no dirty diapers, no snot nor vomit“
Yes. So it is.
Being able to conceive in our forties as easily as it was in our twenties would complete the sacred circle of life for us.
So what’s the deal with the body clock? And I ask again, did God not want us women to be career women? What’s the deal that was made with women's bodies.
That old pact or pattern just doesn’t work in today’s society.
A friend and a fellow entrepreneur, a highly successful businesswoman that is ;), once told me when we were saying our goodbyes, for what we didn’t know would become seven years … “And Sóley, just remember to get an Au Pair” She spoke those words looking deep into my eyes. Then she continued “It will allow you to be both a fantastic mother and a successful entrepreneur.” She knew my early adult dreams of becoming the mother to the three children.
The next time we met, all those seven years later, we spoke of child-rearing, motherhood and the creative forces of the universe. She said, “You are here to birth something great into this world, be it children or something else”. Those words lingered with me. Especially the latter part. “… something else”. Maybe! Who knows?
Why do I remember those words so clearly? Well, it’s obvious, it touched a string. Maybe I won’t have children. But maybe I will. Maybe I will become one of those cool older new-hippie-generation moms… Ageless!
Who knows.
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