Like Me

“The impulse to touch a sleeping child never fades, no matter that the child is a good deal larger than her mother, and a woman—if a young one—in her own right. I smoothed the hair back from her face and stroked the crown of her head. She smiled in her sleep, a brief reflex of contentment, gone as soon as it appeared. My own smile lingered as I watched her, and I whispered to her sleep-deaf ears, as I had so many times before, ‘God, you are so like him.’”

--from Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon

Wednesday will be my 28th birthday. I will have survived 28 years on this earth. Before you go navigating away, thinking that this will be some lament about how old I am getting, let me assure you that is not the case. For one thing, recent events have really taught me to appreciate that I’m still here. (I still wish you could come back, Stephen.)

But before Stephen’s accident, I was never one to freak out over getting older. I came to the realization long ago that I can’t pause time. Every day I get a little older, and the particular day that I cross the threshold into another year doesn’t mean much. I tend to view my birthday as the one holiday I don’t have to share with anyone else. Plus, I get a free drink from Starbucks, a free pastry from Panera, and a free stirfry from Flat Top! (Join birthday clubs, people. They rule.) Plus, there is usually also cake and an excuse to eat it. What’s not to like?

This whole, “Oh crap, another year has gone by and I haven’t gotten to a better place!” business doesn’t tend to enter my mind. I’m lucky enough to be living in a city that I love, in an apartment that is a huge step up from my last one, doing a job that I enjoy at a pay rate I deserve. I have supportive, loving friends and I do a pretty good job of staying involved in my community. I try a lot of new things and stick with many of them. I have no reason not to feel like I am not where I should be by age 28.

Well, except for the fact that I’m still single. I would be lying if I said that this never bothers me, but I can honestly say that I’m okay with being single about 90% of the time. When a wedding invitation comes, I wish I had a date to bring. When I’m sitting at a table of couples, I feel like the odd one out. But overall, I’m comfortable with my life as it is. While I hope that someday I will meet someone that hangs around for the long run, after years of beating myself up about what I’m doing wrong, I’ve accepted that it will happen or it won’t. I can’t do anything about the timing. I’m content to make the best of whatever relationship status I happen to be in. Maybe I’ll meet someone tomorrow, and maybe it’ll be when I’m 50. I refuse to live as if I’m just waiting for that day.

But there is one thing that makes this whole philosophy more complicated: someday, I want to have kids. And while I’m sure I could be equally happy to meet someone at age 50 as I could be at 28, I don’t think the idea of having kids at age 50 is a good one.

It’s not that I’m one of those natural mother-y types. I’m actually kind of afraid of kids. They make me nervous. Babies are a little easier, as I do not have to think of appropriate things to say to them. But toddlers? Preschoolers? Ack. They always look at me with such expectations. I feel like I never meet those expectations. I have the potential to be an interesting and fun companion, and then I fail miserably at it. I’m not much of a nurturer, either. When kids are struggling with something, my impulse is to do it for them, not coax them along. No, I’m definitely not the natural mother.

I also don’t subscribe to the “Motherhood is the world’s most noble pursuit” stuff. Of course I really admire anyone who brings up a child. But it’s not because I think they are noble. It’s because I am certain that parenthood is epically hard. It’s a never-ending list of responsibilities and opportunities to be judged.

So if that’s how I feel about motherhood, why do I want kids, anyway? There are a lot of obvious, cliché reasons, but the reason I’m thinking about today is this: I am so curious to know how my kids would turn out.

Growing up, I never looked all that much like either of my parents. My sister has always looked more like my dad. When she was younger, she sounded just like my mom on the phone. But there weren’t any strong links like that between my parents and me. In recent years, however, I can’t even count the number of times I have looked in the mirror (either figuratively or literally) and seen each of my parents.

I can look at something and visually picture the way it must work; that’s my dad in me. When I read, always remember much more about the characters than I do about the places or events; that comes from my mom. When I walk out of a theater into a crowded lobby, I feel like the crowd is pressing in on me and can’t wait to get out of it; I know my dad feels like that, too. When I’m sitting at work and I discover a really big problem with the books, under my breath I mutter, “Eiya, eiya, eiya”; that a mantra of my mother’s and (so I hear) also of my grandmother’s.

Yes, I am a lot like both of my parents. And I can’t help but wonder how my kids would be like me. Would my daughter worry about every slight ache, pain, or variation in her pulse? Would my son be utterly incapable of playing a team sport? Would my daughter have an eye for detail? Would my son say “Eiya, eiya, eiya” to himself?

Of course, I am also eager to see how my children would be different from me, and how they would be like whoever their father might be. There are a lot of things about me that seemingly came from nowhere. (For example, neither of my parents seem to have much interest in writing.) But it’s the similarities that capture my imagination.

Above all else, I hope that if I have children someday, when they turn 28 and reflect on how I am a part of them... I hope they are as proud to be like me as I am to be like my mother and father.

Love you, Mom and Dad. Thanks for helping me through 28 years and beyond.