On the brain

Top of the evenin' my lovely lurkers! It’s been a while.  I’d love to say I’ve been busy, but to be honest I’ve really just been playing a lot of Guild Wars 2.  I don’t even really play it properly, I run about taking screen shots of my character wearing different armors.  It’s like Barbies for grown-ups.

"Hey guys, don't mind me, I'm just dying to take this photo of myself!"

However, I did tear myself away from my laptop and went out for dinner with a couple of my girlfriends last week. (How good is friendship?!)  The thing that's stuck in my mind from our conversation is that we all confessed to be feeling jealous of women who have babies.  While it’s not good to hear I’m not the only one that feels this way, it is comforting.

It’s strange, because other women having babies doesn’t mean I can’t have babies.  I suppose it limits the fish in the sea, but it doesn’t rule out the possibility that I could one day be a mum. It’s just... I dunno. Why haven’t I yet? What are they doing that I'm not? (Aside from the obvious...)

There’s this intense ambivalence raging inside me.  I want a baby and I want my life to be easy, but these two ideas seem mutually exclusive.  I don't want to decide to have a baby and then regret that decision.  I don't want to decide to not have a baby and then regret that decision.  I don't want to make a decision, but there is a lot of pressure on me (out of nowhere it would seem) to make this choice RIGHT NOW.

I never even thought having babies would be something I’d have to make a decision on. I always assumed it would just happen - when the time is right.  As I get older I’m starting to see that there isn’t a right time.  I always thought I’d (1) get married; then (2) have a baby.  Step 1 doesn’t seem to be happening and I’m considering just "c'est la vie"-ing my way over to Step 2.

It seems my whole 20s I’ve been searching for someone who would love and care about me and who I could love and support in return; a "partnership" of sorts one may say. Now I’m approaching my 30s and I feel this shift towards this need to care for someone in a more nurturing fashion.

I guess it’s just that accepting and loving a person (another adult with their own experiences and views and set ways) is different to creating, accepting and loving a person (who has with their own experiences and views and set ways). I suppose.  I'm not sure though.  How can I be?  I'm not a parent.  I don't know.  You're putting a lot of pressure on me to explain myself, blog!

I think my fear is that I always thought my purpose was to be a mum, now I'm starting to worry that my purpose is to desperately want to be a mum but never realise that dream.  If that is the case then, well, I suppose that's my story. But it would be a sad story indeed.  I'd have to rewrite it with philanthropism (ewww gross! Don't be bringing that altruism in here Missy!)

Anyway, they're just some quick thoughts on the matter.  I keep coming across books and blogs about the subject - the universe is clearly trying to speak to me so I  thought I'd reply in my muddy disjointed can't-she-keep-her-thoughts-linear way. Back to screen shotting!