Today is Mother’s Day.
It’s one of my Hard Days, as I call them. One of the days where my face randomly leaks at any given
point.
I’m pretty sure I’ve told you guys this, but I feel like I
got “this close” to being a mother before Sawan died. I was ready to try for a baby a long time before he was, and
it took a lot of “discussing” to get him on the same page, but, literally two
weeks before he died, we had this amazing conversation and we decided that we
would start trying as soon as we got the salon sold. The closing date for the salon was September 1, and he died on
August 24, so I never got the chance.
I have people that ask me, when they find out that I’m a young widow, if
I have children, and when I respond “no” they say that I’m lucky. I want to punch them in the face. I feel like I lost my husband, but I lost
my babies, too.
It’s a complicated thing, this being 36 years old and
childless. I (except for a brief
period in my self-centered twenties) always wanted to be a mom. I was one of those little girls that
carried around a baby doll everywhere I went. I know that I’m not the only woman that is constantly feeling
that it’s almost too late (or maybe it already is and I don’t even know) to be
a mother. The pressure that that
puts on relationships is ridiculous.
The pressure that it puts on me to be
in a relationship is enormous. I
just stayed in one way too long and one
of the main reasons was that I thought it might be my last chance to have a
family.
Here’s what’s strange about that. When Sawan and I were dating, I was (and still am) this
super strong, stubborn, independent woman. I made a big deal about not needing him to come and rescue
me. I think that somewhere in the
beginning of our relationship we watched Jerry McGuire on TV and we talked
about how neither of us needed the other one to “complete” us. Gag me. I don’t buy into that line of thinking in
relationships. He was a soul mate,
for sure, and I loved him with every part of my being, and when I lost him I
felt like I had lost part of myself, but he didn’t complete me. After we were married,
though, I think I somehow bought in to the world’s idea of what a woman should
want and be. I read all of the
sappy quotes about how you’ll never know true love until you have a child. I thought I needed a child to know how
to really love. I thought I needed
a child to complete me.
It’s taken a long time, but I’ve finally come to the
realization that that way of thinking is so wrong. You know, this may be “it” for my life, and that’s ok. I guess I’ve just realized that for
now, I’m as complete a person as I’m supposed to be. I’m as complete a “lover” as I’m supposed to be (at least at
this moment). If I was
supposed to know how to love like a mother, then I would be
a mother.
Don’t get me wrong.
It is my heart’s deepest desire to find another love, to have again the
kind of man that I can imagine being on a team with for the rest of my
life. And then, to get to have a
little person grow inside me, to get to hold a tiny baby that has half my DNA,
to get to teach them all about life, to hear someone call me “Mommy.” I hardly ever spend much time thinking
about it because it hurts so bad knowing the dream may never come true.
I think that there are lots of women out there who feel
similarly to me, who, for whatever reason, have not had life turn out the way
that they thought it would. If
you’re one of those women and you’re reading this, to you I say, “Don’t buy
into it! You’re a whole person
just as you are!”
And, who knows?
I may still get to be a mom.
All of those dreams could still come true. But if not (or until then), I’m going to practice being the
best lover of people that I can possibly be. I’m going to love with all of the love I know how to love
with.
On this Mother’s Day, I’m thinking about how I get to love
on my siblings’ and cousins’ and friends’ kiddos. I get to be “Auntie” and “Tia” and, sometimes just “Noey”
(it’s awesome when I get to be “Noey” and the kids have to call all the other
adults a formal “Miss So-and-So”).
I get to be a daughter to an awesome, still living Mom, whom I actually
really like (and got to spend Mother’s Day with today, don’t think I don’t appreciate
how special that is).
I don’t need a child
to complete me. I’m whole and
complete, just as I am. (It
sure would be nice, though.)
