How Would It Be If I Just Show Up As Me?
I had a personal breakthrough today, and it’s one that I want to share. I want to share it not because I’m particularly interested in having my soft underbelly exposed to the world, but because I believe that we are all connected, and I hope that by sharing my story I will be able to help or provide some solace to someone else who feels she is out there all alone.
I’ve been struggling for years to get clarity around whether or not I want to have children. Sure, there have been other times when I haven’t known whether to pick Door A or Door B. In those situations, though, I have often found that the reason I wasn’t clear about which path to take was because I needed to sit and wait. I needed more information, time to just be with the different options, a chance to let it all percolate in my subconscious or to talk it through with mentors or friends.
This situation, though, has been completely different. For as long as I’ve sat with the question of whether or not I want to be a mom, I’ve felt really torn. I am a decisive person, and am more comfortable navigating change (even major life changes) than most people I know, so I have felt really confused by and frustrated with my inability to know what I want.
I work with clients across the country — and even around the world — to help them create the lives they really want for themselves. And the first part of the work we do together is always about getting clear. I ask questions, we have conversations, and they engage in exercises and practices designed to help them clarify and distill what really matters to them, what they really want for their lives. Because as competent as we all are, if we don’t have clarity about what we want it’s really tough to design and implement a plan to move a direction we’ll ultimately find satisfying and fulfilling and enlivening.
And so I’ve been — for the past 15 years to be precise — in this betwixt and between middle-ground-kind-of-place about the question of having children. I’ve done lots of my own personal growth work (it’s pretty much a requisite for anyone in my line of work!), and over the years, I’ve gotten more and more comfortable in my own skin. I’ve learned heaps about myself, and have learned to accept and even love parts of myself that I once denied or suppressed or just plain hated. As I’ve done that, much in my life has become clear and smooth, instead of a struggle. I have learned to be honest with myself and with the people in my life about what matters most to me and learned to let go of things that don’t. I have seen that things that feel at the time like massive failures (things like being fired from a job and getting divorced) have brought me huge gifts and lessons that I wouldn’t trade for anything.
Still, the question of having children has really plagued me. I have girlfriends who have always known that they wanted to be a mom. That has been so clear to them that they have stated that if the right guy doesn’t show up in their lives, they would have children on their own. In some cases, they have. I have always known that I didn’t want that. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely don’t judge them for wanting what they want or doing what they’ve done, I was just clear that it wasn’t what I wanted.
People often ask me if I have children. When I say, “No,” they sometimes ask if I want to have children. And because I’m currently single, it’s invariably a topic that comes up with the men I am meeting and going out on dates with. I can’t tell you how much I have wanted a clear answer, the kind that I know in deepest part of my being to be my truth.
The day before yesterday, I was once again asked whether I want to have children. I felt a sadness well up inside me and constrict my throat as I struggled internally to find an answer. “I’m not sure. It depends on whether I fall in love with someone who already has children or not,” is what I finally managed to say, but the sadness stayed with me.
And so, today I created some space to sit with myself. Being an analytically inclined creative person, I asked myself: “Why would you want children?” and I sat with a pen in hand just waiting for the answer to emerge from a deeper place within myself. What I found myself writing surprised me a bit. “If I had children, I would get to play and teach and explore and snuggle and grow and feel connected and feel safe and secure in my relationship with my [future] husband.”
The next question I asked myself, though, was a doozy. I knew it was a powerful question for me because I was hit by a surge of emotion as soon as I wrote the question down on a piece of paper: “What are you afraid it would mean about you if you don’t want to have children?” I started writing and the following words flowed onto my page within seconds. When there was a pause, I asked myself, “What else are you afraid it would mean?”
I wrote:
- I’m selfish
- I’m incapable of loving, giving, caring for others
- I’m not a complete woman
- I’m afraid to step up in my life
- I avoid responsibilities
- I’m different from most women
- I’m a failure as a woman
- No one will be there to take care of me or care about me when I’m old
- I’m broken
As I looked at the list, I knew that I needed to reach out for support. Have you ever noticed that when you are emotionally charged you lose perspective? This was one of those moments. The rational part of me was completely shut down and useless. I needed someone who knew me well to talk me back to a place of being able to see things clearly, rather than seeing things through the filter that I was using. When I contemplated who to call, I was hit by another big wave of sadness. All of my closest female friends who are married have children. Every single one. They all knew they wanted to be moms and say that their kids are one of the best things that have happened to them. They love being a mom and wouldn’t trade it for anything. I felt completely alone. I felt like no one who really knows me and who I would normally turn to when I needed support could help me because none of them would be able to relate to how I feel.
I took a deep breath, and dialed my best friend. We’ve been friends for 30 years, so she knows me really well. She answered the phone, and after asking if she had a few minutes, I just started talking. She already knew that I’ve felt confused about the whole question of kids. I told her about feeling sad. I read her everything that I had written. And after each of the bullet points I mentioned above, she extracted the bullet from my heart and covered the wound with salve by telling me all of the ways in which that condemnation I was so ready to inflict upon myself can’t possibly be true. She gave me example after example to counter the claims from my inner critic. And then she waited for me to share the next zinger from my list. She didn’t judge me or laugh at me or tell me that she was surprised to hear me reek that havoc unnecessarily on myself. She simply dismantled each statement with lots of evidence and let that evidence sink in until I could see the truth in what she was pointing to.
I have always known that I am incredibly blessed. My life is filled with treasures, and most of them take the form of my amazing friends, friends whose kids call me aunt, friends who I love and adore and would do anything for, friends who show up for me in the moments when I really need them.
May we all look beneath and beyond what the media and society and everyone else says and does so that we can find our own truth.
And may you have people to support you as you bare your soft underbelly, people who remind you of how amazing and loving and lovable and perfect you are just as you are, being who you are, having what you have, doing what you do, wanting what you want for your life.
Today I am finally clear. I love children. What I’ve been told my whole life is true: I would be a great mom if I chose to be a mom. Perhaps my soulmate will have young children. If he does, I will willingly step in at 100% to be a great stepmother, a positive force in their lives, and certainly someone who loves them. It will always be important to me to be the best aunt ever to all my friends’ kids.
Now I know in deepest part of my being that my truth is this: I love the flexibility and spontaneity and time for myself that I have in my life because I have chosen not to have children. I don’t have children. Not because I couldn’t and not because there’s anything wrong with me, but rather because I chose otherwise.