The Last Stop

Anytime I’ve thought I was pregnant in the last four years or so – even since I’ve been happily married and in a happy place to be able to have children – I panic like the world is coming to an end. Because, of course, once The Baby is born, the world will stop, and we will never be able to eat, breathe or sleep again and then the walls will crash in, the furniture will melt and we will all DIE BECAUSE WE CANNOT HANDLE THE CHILDREN.

I got like this before I was married – I tend to gravitate towards the counterculture viewpoint, and instead of seeing what’s shoved down my throat as desireable (i.e., a beautiful wedding, a husband, etc.), I am equally toxic with the counter position. In other words, just as many women irrationally desire a wedding and marriage with all the trimmings without really thinking about what it all means, I irrationally desired a dark life of solitude and singledom, because I wasn’ t like all those other women. I was smarter! Free to be me! I didn’t need no stinking wedding ring! And so, I made myself miserable for the entire bout of my engagement and created a prison for what was supposed to be a momentous occasion. And, of course, after all the bruhaha and my incredibly stupid freak-outs, being married turned out to be perfect and better than I could have expected.

And, I’m kind of doing it with parenthood, and sometimes I feel like I’ve got plenty of enablement in the Mommyblogging movement. Instead of eschewing motherhood because it’s shiny! Happy! Wondrous! FULL OF LOVE!, I’m finding myself terrified of a world of exhaustion, sore nipples and what I occasionally interpret as a love/hate, (leaning more towards “hate”) relationship with one’s toddler. I realize this is part of the package, so before every mother on the Internet starts screaming that I am naive and foolish and also, cruel, to dismiss the trials and tribulations of Everymother, bear with me, for I realize this is entirely my fault. And let me remind everyone that I am on anxiety meds because I tend to panic about the worst of all possible situations, and every realistic reminder terrifies me to the brink of sanity.

It’s just that sometimes it feels like the balloon has been deflated – the pendulum swung too far in the opposite direction. My sister always reminds me of how lonely, terrifying and miserable her first few months with Marco were. She talks of bone-chilling sleep deprivation, isolating, wall-climbing loneliness that rendered her in tears nearly every hour, and how, at times, she almost wished she hadn’t run off and gotten knocked up, even though she tried hard – so very hard – to have him in the first place.

The reality of it all has stolen my dark underbelly. I have nothing to desire or eschew. The reality, unfortunately, seems quite bleak and so it seems, I may be forced to eschew it after all, out of sheer terror, because after so many of the things I’ve read/heard/seen, who the HELL would rightfully sign themselves up for this shit? WHO? I’m not being sarcastic.

Let me put it more postively, with some actions that might help, shall we? I wish sometimes that I could hear and read more about whatever moments there are of sheer joy in having children. How it’s not all bad. How marriages can survive without perpetual battles over childcare, screaming babies, the financial strain and General Torture that seems to accompany children. How, even though sometimes there are moments of such unadulterated misery that it is highly possible you just might impale yourself on a passing stingray, the vast majority – or, hell, I’ll take anything higher than 30% – is beautiful, and holds such moments of wonder that you think you might explode with love. How a marriage can survive when two people are committed, even though they might be, ahem, volatile personalities.

Somebody tell me. Somebody tell me what it’s like after the babies. After they stop being more interactive pets and become fully-formed human beings with opinions – when they become financial drains, and whiners, and Little League members and dancers who beg for costumes and wives or husbands who overindulge against the other spouses wishes step in, and then spend their money on haircare, handbags and golf lessons instead of the college fund and OHGODTHEWORLDISENDINGSOMEBODYSAVEME.

Because honestly, I don’t get it yet. I *crave* babies. I crave babies in little socks with little feet and laughs that bounce off the walls and fill the room like bubbles. But kids? Marriage misery? I can’t see it.

*Dave Matthews

12 comments June 5th, 2006