my love is something which is very near in place

and time but not yet known to me

i know for certain, now, that i won’t have kids.

a woman that i know, only vaguely and from a distance, comes in with her short curly blonde hair always wet or seemingly wet from her hair product, her eyes are a soft turquoise etched with very deep crows feet that crinkle when she smiles and while holding a silk charmeuse dress up to her frame, she will ask me if i froze my eggs yet. sometimes she doesn’t bother asking and as she takes out her american express card to pay for a $400 slip dress, she will tell me she’s mad at me because she knows i haven’t done it. i groan and laugh knowingly, playing along with her disappointment even though i don’t know why i’m playing along at all. i know, i know, i know. as i say those words, i have no idea why i’m saying them. as she leaves, she says in a sing-song voice that sounds more menacing than kind: if you don’t…you’re going to regret it. she leaves just as quickly as she came.

i’m not as thin as i was when i was on adderall. sometimes when i’m waiting for the water to heat up in the shower or i’m sitting in my car or in my bed, i grab parts of my body that feel fuller and softer. it’s not a gentle touch but one of judgement and on bad days, disappointment. i grab and i tug and i pull and i measure. i feel around my hips and a part of me finds a twisted and disturbing comfort in knowing the weight i’ve gained would be good for a baby i know i won’t ever have.

a secret is this: sometimes before i shower, i stand naked in front of my full length mirror and let my stomach extend as far as it can go. i let my hand rest where my skin stretches and expands. while staring at my protruding stomach, i get a glimpse into a different timeline where i am six or seven months pregnant. it is a timeline where i am anxiously waiting for this alien-being to make it’s way earthside, strangely careful and appreciative of my body because for the first time in my life, i recognize that it’s not just a body but a home. another secret is this: on my flight home from oaxaca, i barged through an airport gate that i wasn’t supposed to enter. i was delirious, feverish and nauseated from eating an undercooked burger at the hotel the night before. i was sweating profusely through my polyester shirt, wildly bright-eyed in a way that makes you look unwell and a little insane. i felt sweat dripping down my chest between my tits and i could feel my foundation sliding off my upper lip. i didn’t care, i just needed to sit down. an old lady, a fellow passenger who was walking down the ramp at an impossibly slow pace that i impatiently cut off, snapped at me that i wasn’t supposed to do that. her cruel stare and the haughty stares of the other passengers who saw me barrel through the gate made me feel feral. in a feverish panic, i blurted out: sorry, i am pregnant and i feel sick! the stares softened and i swear i heard murmurs of compassion and understanding. my impatience, petulance and arrogance was immediately excused. the bitchy old lady, in her guilt, made a sound and motioned me to sit down on the floor while we waited to board. i let myself crumple into a feverish, fake pregnant, nauseated puddle. how many months are you? she asked me gently, and is it your first? i nodded and another woman passenger nodded in acknowledgment and sympathy. in a sociopathic way, it felt so good to lie in my misery. i wanted her to feel bad, i wanted her to feel guilty for trying to embarrass me and i wanted to experience people having pity for all the things you suffer while creating life only because they’re in absolute awe of you for growing a life. do you know what you’re having? you’re barely showing! have you had a lot of sickness? when it was finally time to board, everyone encouraged me to go first. a man offered to help me up from the disgusting airport floor. i declined. mid-flight, the old lady hobbled over and handed me some limón chips that she swore would help with the nausea i made her believe was induced by pregnancy and not food poisoning. i protested because now i felt guilty but she shook her hand at me sternly so i accepted them because i didn’t know what else to do. she watched me as i placed them on the cocktail napkin on my tray table. i fell back asleep, feverish and shivering and woke up when we landed to her anxiously looking at me across the aisle with a big smile on her face: you made it! you survived the flight!

i’ve been pregnant once in my life. i was 23 years old, miserable and scared. the boyfriend i had at the time was a loser, something i couldn’t see then but see so clearly now. i certainly did not want to be the mother of his child but there was a part of me that felt devastated i couldn’t and wouldn’t have this baby. in the short weeks i was pregnant, i loved eggplant and threw up at the smell of meat. i still remember that with a weird and distant fondness. leading up to my abortion, i fantasized about what life could be like as a 23 year old mom. i would take the baby and break up with my then boyfriend. they would never know their dad and i would convince myself it was the right thing to do. me and the baby would move back to california. it would just be us. maybe we would have to live with my mom for a bit. i would struggle, sure, but the baby would be loved. maybe i would cry at night but i would laugh during the day with them. i’d read them books at night when i got home from work. i would let them play in the dirt and we’d go to the beach on weekends, i’d blow bubbles and let them scream as loud as they want in the park, maybe i would do something random like fly kites with them. would we have matching sneakers? i’d remember to pack organic baby smoothie packs for longer outings. i’d make intricate snack plates and pack them lunch with a sticky note reminding them i loved them when they were finally old enough to go to school. i know i would love them in ways that my mom made us feel loved. maybe life would be hard but when is it not? maybe we would be poor but who isn’t? when they put me under the twilight anesthesia to suck the growing embryo out of my uterus, i remember my last thought being: my love for you is already infinite. i never had another pregnancy scare after that.

i’m 34 now. i’m almost 35. i feel young enough to change my mind about kids and in some ways, i feel too old to think about it now. sometimes when i’m mad at my mom or she’s mad at us, i text ethan and tell him that if i had a kid, i would never treat them the way she treats us. but as a child to a parent, i have treated my mom in ways that would obliterate me if i were in her shoes. when i was 19, i used the circumstances of my mom trying her best to care for us as a way to run away from home. i told her i didn’t want to live in the apartment with her anymore, i demanded space while insulting her efforts to provide us a safe and nurturing home, i insisted that i needed to just leave and in turn, i made her feel that what she gave all these years wasn’t enough to keep me. there are some things in my life i cannot forgive myself for and this is one of those things. when i embarked on this adventure that i was convinced would change my life and enlighten me, i slept in my car some nights in a well lit motel parking lot while avoiding emails from my mom that demanded, angrily at first and then desperately, i come home. in my own selfishness and in my own pursuit of glory and adulthood, i convinced myself that whatever pain i caused my mom was not mine to deal with and that her role as a mom was to let me go and i was owed the freedom to figure out things on my own. i convinced myself of this as i smoked endless cigarettes with my car window down throughout arizona, utah, colorado, wyoming, montana and illinois. i convinced myself of this as i followed a boy who posed naked for art sites for money to his home state. i convinced myself of this as i spent my last $10 on a loaf of bread and peanut butter. i convinced myself of this even though all i wanted to do was go home but i had convinced myself and my mom that where she was and what she built for us, was not good enough to be home.

my mom used to say that how we treat her would come back to us ten times worse when we have kids. she says this as a joke but it sounds more like a promise, or a threat. i think about that. sometimes i get sad at the thought of not experiencing that unique heartbreak that only a child can cause their parents because it is love built and grown without conditions. but why would i ever want to experience that? is it because i am a pursuer of love? or maybe, it’s because deep down, i still believe suffering is part of loving someone.

when i was younger, my idea of motherhood seemed so attainable. you meet someone, by choice or by accident, you choose to walk into a deep like with this person or maybe even love and maybe you stay in love or maybe you don’t but you tangle your limbs with this person over and over again until your body learns theirs as much as theirs learns yours. one day, you realize something is different. you find out you’re pregnant and you decide to give it a go. you both do. your body grows, your skin stretches, your tits grow heavier. as your body changes, you change. this magical otherworldly being is earthside and now, not only have you changed but your whole world changes. you stretch, you shrink, you scream, you grow, you whisper, you cry, you are exhilarated, you see more color, you feel more color, you taste more color, you taste blood, you give more than you have but maybe you take more than you should, you want to die, even when you feel like dying- you want to be reincarnated into this life over and over and over again so you try to do everything right and everything kind so you can stay in this life for as long as you can, the only constant is that you try to grow as they grow, you convince yourself that you’re trying your best and maybe, despite how selfish it is, you feel the most pride when you see parts of yourself sprouting in them.

but as i get older, and as i get to know myself more deeply and face feelings of guilt and shamelessness about my flaws and imperfections, i know that even the best version of motherhood is something i would fail miserably at. i wouldn’t fail at loving them. i would love them for forever and a day. i would love them even in my death. i would love every single hair on their head, i would love every disgusting thing about them, i would love them beyond my own comprehension but it’s not about love. i know that my hope for motherhood would be selfish, i would hope that it could change me into the woman that i had always hoped i could be. i know with each kiss on my baby’s little hands or with each kiss on their little toes, i would pray for a magnificent transformation of who i am as a person. i would pray that it would make me more present, healed and whole, more responsible, less carefree, less lazy, less prone to impulse, someone less resentful, someone more pragmatic than emotional, someone who could teach how to be sensitive yet tough, someone who could love from a distance when necessary, someone who doesn’t escape, someone who knows how to save money, someone who can do laundry the proper way, someone who can do the dishes without missing a spot, someone who knows how to be happy, someone who can guide right from wrong without being self-centered, someone who could love their body without bitterness or rage, someone who could live for both themselves and their child. i would pray i turn into someone who could just feel free.

i am dating someone now. over dinner one night, and after two glasses of wine, i awkwardly told him that if i were to ever get pregnant, i am not having it. i tell him i do not want children. i do not want kids. i do not want a kid. i didn’t know who i was really saying that for, me or him. and even so, even then, i felt a small ache in the middle of my chest. my mind jumped to that afternoon when i got my abortion and how i slowly walked out of the clinic with a pad the size of a comforter between my legs, dazed and exhausted, and then my mind went back to over 15 years ago when i told my weeping mom i was leaving the home she worked hard to build for us- not purely out of adventure but out of a selfish spite, i think about my dad and how there is a part of me who wants to prove him wrong by having a small family. there is a part of me that wants to show him that see!!! there is someone who loves me enough to be with me, to stay with me, to raise a child with me, you were wrong and look at us, look at me, i am not like you like i thought, look at what i created, i will never treat them the way you treated me. but i come back to earth, i come back to the table of the dimly lit restaurant where the man i am dating is holding my hand and i smile and i’m here. i’m here. even with the pang in my chest that slowly begins to feel like a heartbeat, i am here.