Mothers Day Angst
Its mother day this weekend.
I would like to say that I have mixed emotions about the day, but in truth, all my feelings are negative - either anger, sadness or emptiness.
I haven’t spoken to my own mother in over 18 months, and before that brief but ill-fated rekindling of our relationship we hadn’t spoken in over 4 years. There is nothing good to come of us interacting, so it’s easier to get on with my life as if she doesn’t exist. I don’t know if she feels the same way about me, and I don’t care. When people ask about my family I say I don’t have a mother, and that honestly sums up how I feel. I don’t have a mother now, and I never did.
Another different yet equally strong sense of sadness comes from the fact that I know I will never be a mother myself. Not only did I waste my most fertile years raising a child who I was technically married to, but at the end of that part of my life I found out that during those fertile years I was in fact as barren as I could be, and I remain so to this day. Without the most advanced technological intervention that medicine can offer, I will not be able to conceive or carry a child.
Even if I were to decide to attempt it, the timing would not be right. I am in the most selfish phase of my life at the moment, happily back on my feet post-divorce and on the cusp of having a delightfully easy going relationship evolve in to something that one day we might consider thinking about turning into some sort of long term arrangement. Maybe. I enjoy sleeping in. I enjoy spending my money on myself. I enjoy having my blood alcohol limit over 0.05 for most of the weekend. I don’t want that to change right now.
My choice of partner is another factor, because he already has 2 children from his previous marriage and isn’t keen on having more. As much as I adore his son and his daughter, I do get the urge to strangle them more than is probably healthy, and the thought of having to go through sleepless nights, nappies, toilet training and tantrums in the 6-8 before they are only THIS annoying makes me sick to my stomach. I’m sure its different when it’s your own children but right now I can’t see myself being patient or tolerant enough to manage it.
Should I suddenly become clucky and launch myself into the hilarity of hormones, blood tests and IVF I fear that the best of the worst of my child bearing years are already behind me. While exact dates escape me at the moment, I believe that my sisters first miscarriage occured when she was 32. Five years and too many dead babies later, I am still too emotionally exhausted to consider being more than just a passenger on the freight train to grief and permanent infertility especially since I am that same age now myself.
For the sake of hypotheticals, let’s say I successfully conceived. My sister told me years ago that as much as she would want to, she would not be able to be happy for me, or supportive in any way of my embarkation into motherhood. Her own grief is too strong, and her sense of loss would only be compounded by that betrayal on my behalf. While she never used that term herself, I feel that having a child when my big sister couldn’t would indeed be an act of betrayal. Despite the fact that she no longer speaks to me either, I would still feel like I was taking something away from her, and the guilt I would feel prevents me from even considering it.
A few years ago, I actually gave her a bunch of flowers and a mothers day card, because she did so much more to raise me than our mother did, and I wanted her to know how much I appreciated it. I couldn’t spend 9 months pregnant and go through delivery without my sister by my side. She means more to me than almost anyone, and I miss her so terribly.
In summary: Happy Mothers Day to all of you who have mothers or are mothers. I hope your weekend is filled with love and laughter and all the happiness you can stand. I’ll be sleeping in and drinking. Excessively.
