Calm down….
(just in case anyone started getting ideas to say i’m having one)
I was taking the opportunity to enjoy a rare conversation with my mother last night (anything longer than 2 minutes is long-winded in our view of the world) and I was absolutely moved to realise that the older I get, the more i’m starting to understand the way she sees the world, because it’s the way that I see it.
I was confronted yesterday with the statement from Mum that it wouldn’t suprise her if Kath and I never had kids and just got married and decided that it wasn’t in our plan for things we wanted to do, and I have to admit that i’m starting to think that it’s possible that she might be correct.
Now I need to be careful when I say that because the more that my life moves forward, the more that I realise that i’m not really in control of any of the big ticket items (health, love, family), they either happen or they don’t, and i’m not really in any position to be a part of the creative process, i’m just their for the journey and the universe is just dragging me along (sometimes kicking and screaming, sometimes willingly). For me, the thought of having kids has always been artificial, though because of societys value on the process, i’ve always said ‘one day’ and ‘one day’, however as each year goes by, that one day just continues to stretch out over the horizon and the more it stretches, the more I see it as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbox, and i’m the leprechaun.
So the thought that has crossed my mind of late is that i’m 28 years old and I still don’t have a single thought process that makes me want to have kids, doesn’t make me feel like being a parent and doesn’t want to add another human being into my equation of who I am and what I represent.
Now attempting to explain this to Kath is like talking a foreign language. While she has simply no concept of not ever having kids, she also has no inclinations, desires or feelings towards having children anytime in our immediate or medium term future. The opposite side of this is that she happily holds onto the thought process that she will ‘one day’ have one (or more) children of her own, and finds it distantly eerie and somewhat concerning that I raise the topic that I may just never want them.
And this is where I realise that more and more, i’m like my mum.
For all the years i’ve felt tormented and pressured to be something that I don’t understand, I realise now that my mum and I couldn’t really communicate because there’s no way for she could possibly explain to me that I will *always* feel like this. I will always be a little unsure, a little unstable and a little wary about my own happiness. I’m always going to feel that I don’t really deserve it, or that one day it might not be there anymore. And it’s not sadness that I feel or ambivalence that’s in my heart, it’s just an almost saddening type of reality that not everything remains true forever crossed with a sense of blessing that comes with enjoying what we have in this very moment.
To add a child into my equation of life feels like i’m robbing the universe of a little too much karma, and that right now, and for as long as I can see it, having a child in my life would represent me having to give up even more of things that define me (friends, family, work, outside commitments) and i’d just be doing less of the things I love right now place of one other thing that i’ll love if and when i’m doing it.
Now to some i’m sure this will come off as being entirely selfish, why the hell don’t I want to have kids, and why is that I feel I can be selfish. But I don’t see it that way. I see it that i’ve been lucky, i’ve got all the things I want in this universe with me right here and right now, and rolling the dice for another addition, another component that I can’t see as defining me any further than I am now, I see that as being selfish.
I want my life to balance taking from the universe less than I have given it, I don’t want to burden my karma by trying to have my hands in too many unrelated places.
I think i’m happy right now, and I don’t need anything extra to make me more happy.
Adam
