Choices Made

Chances taken.

I had dinner the other night with one of my dearests. We were fascinated by the fact that so many of our friends decided to be childfree. “The smartest people I know opted not to breed,” I said. Of course, she was included in that category, considering she has won “Jeopardy” twice as well as Ben Stein’s money.

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I always thought I’d be a mother. My imaginary friend (something I thought you were supposed to have, so I made one up at three), was a husband, who I’d bemoan for never making his half of the bed. (I believed in equality at an early age.) I first mothered my brother, pulling him out of the crib at four, changing his Pampers and feeding him a cold bottle. My mother, in her room. My father, not home from the night before. But the wee one and I hung out in front of the TV, happy as clams.

My first babysitting job (unpaid, mind you), was when Cindy left me (five) with my brother (two), and her two daughters (two and eight months) while she went to pick up her grandmother. She was probably gone an hour. Everyone lived. Please note, I was a precocious child, wise beyond my years, having hung out with my mother and her friends as sort of a mascot. I was fun to be around. Just ask Sherrie, who taught me to play 21 when I was three, and then stopped playing with me when I would win. She loved me enough to teach me to tie my shoes though (or was just tired of tying mine). My mom’s friends were more like sisters than aunties. They were only 18 or 19 years older than me. They had their first kids when my mom was having her second.

Cindy swore me to secrecy, but I was so proud of myself for being trusted, I spilled the beans to my mom, and Cindy got tore a new one.

Photo by Caleb Woods on Unsplash

At eight, I was babysitting the neighbors’ six-month old. My mother was across the driveway, so it’s not like she wasn’t in screaming distance and I had/have a set of lungs on me that would have my mother take me out of school when she went to the gold district downtown, as sort of a personal security alarm. “No one can scream like you can,” she said. (Fun fact: A friend used me to dub in horror movie screams once that were so good, folks from other rooms came over to give me props. That’s what happens when you have the long lungs of an asthmatic and was raised on Hitchcock and the Monster Movie Matinee.)

From junior high through my sophomore year, I babysat all the time. Including me, at 14 and 15, staying over weekends and keeping two boys — who were holy terrors — alive. My mother was across the street and down the block; not a scream, but a phone call away. I was not only trustworthy, I took no sh!t. The one time I wasn’t able to babysit for that family, the two boys colluded while they were supposed to be in their separate bedrooms, falling asleep, and took their Playskool desk and hurled it over the upstairs banister and onto the tile entryway. The mother upped my rates after that.

Then, I turned 16, got a car, a boyfriend and job, and that was the end of my babysitting days.

I thought I would have kids (preferably one, but would compromise with two), because that’s what women who wanted it all were supposed to do. Get the education, the marriage, the home and the kids. Then the divorce, right? That’s how it seemed to work out for most.

You’re looking at an educated woman, who’s still paying off her student loan, who never got married and didn’t have kids. Same with my super smart friend. And, as we enjoyed our Greek food on the patio of a restaurant that reminds her of one in Paris, we noted how we had zero regrets. That we are happy and content, and couldn’t imagine having the lives we once imagined for ourselves. We made our choices and took our chances…most of which didn’t pan out as hoped. But we took chances!

I never do what I’m supposed to do. Or it’s not done in the order it should. For a long time, I was the first or the youngest. Now, I’m so not either.

The things I’ve most wanted that I thought weren’t going to happen are coming to me, slowly. And, in some ways, we are supposed to take offense at that. Because, if it’s meant to be, it’s like a lightning strike. Immediate and jolting. Nope. As an Aries who has always gone in head first, jumped off the high board without checking to see if water lies below, lept and that f*cking net did NOT appear, I’m learning to like the slowness, curious about the development and evolution. Watching things fall off and drift away. It’s kind of glorious. I also think it will be like going to sleep or falling in love…happening slowly…and slowly, then ALL AT ONCE!

I’ve made choices and took chances, stuck to my hard NOs and firm boundaries, stayed gooey and soft in my center. I have learned from my mistakes, and any regrets I might have had simply faded into experience and wisdom.

We create our life from the media we are given — clay we can mould, rock we must carve, canvas to paint, paper to write. We are not always provided everything we need to make it a masterpiece. So we have to get clever about it. Stop looking at it one way and seeing it another. Artists are wonderful problem solvers, in that regard. I think Gilligan, et al, would’ve gotten off the island if a BFA were involved. We know how to envision the impossible and collaborate when necessary. We take chaos and bend it into beauty.

“You would’ve been a great mother,” I’ve been told. I know. But my focus would’ve been solely on that job. That’s how I’m built in that regard. There were other things for me to do, though. There still are. And I applaud every parent for doing what they do. It’s so hard. It’s so much.

Then, there was the father, pushing his double-wide stroller with his toddler twins the other morning — iPhone in his hand, AirPods in his ears, head down, focus solely on the screen. I was on my way to work when I saw him coming toward me on the neighborhood side street I take, completely engrossed in whatever was happening in his palm. I slowed, rolled down my window and said, “Hey. Talk to your children.”

I parent in my own way. xo

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