29 or the revolt

I think they’re on to us.

They use to be so content-- blissfully unaware in their drug-induced stupor, emerging only one week out of four into a zombie-half-wakefulness, begging for chocolate, Google-ing puppies in baskets, and occasionally making me cry for no good reason.

But I don’t think I can trick them for much longer because lately. . . lately, they’ve been waking up, announcing their presence, coursing with impatience, becoming increasingly insistent in demanding more than pictures of puppies, and making me cry for what seems like a very good reason.

My ovaries have been going through the motions, faking it for more than a decade. I started taking birth control in the spring of 2000, ostensibly to clear up my still-teenage skin and to regulate my unpredictable periods. So I haven’t ovulated since I was 18, when Bill Clinton was president and we’d never even heard of Survivor.

And suddenly, or not so suddenly, after years under our strict regime, we fall out of step at the sight of a tiny foot. We Google our egg supply’s rate of decline. We feel womanly in ways that are embarrassing.

I just turned 29. Ted celebrated by taking me to one of my favorite restaurants on the Lower East Side; the universe celebrated by seating us next to a toddler singing Old McDonald where we were waited upon by a tall, blonde, and beautifully pregnant woman. And I felt old.

Because 29 is so close to 30, impossible to ignore, impossible to pretend it’s mid-20s and impossible to pretend there’s all the time in the world. And maybe all those years of forcing my hormones into hibernation has just been pushing snooze on my biological clock, and maybe if my ovaries are trying to wake up, maybe it’s time.

There was a short list of things I made, once, of things I needed before I was ready: The walls I’ve got, in Brooklyn of all places, where people come when they need space for a stroller. The health insurance is taken care of. And I’m pretty sure I’ve found the person I want to do it with. There was that time my mom laughed at me when I told her I’d rather have a washing machine than a baby. Well, I’ve got my washing machine.

My body, my choice? My education, my career, my bank account, my city, my boyfriend, my Better Judgment. . . It’s not my body that is making this choice.

I keep chemically regulating, shutting down, postponing. But at 29, the math is hard to ignore, and so is the hollow yearning that makes me feel like one of Those Women. Women, not girls anymore.

And I’m sorry I cried, sorry I got impatient, sorry I wanted more than what we have right here, now, in this apartment that feels like it chose us. I’m greedy for a lifetime of things, but most of all I want you. It’s that that makes me feel ready, and that that makes me willing to wait.


~beatrix


p.s. I do not recommend leaving this tab open on your computer for at least a week like someone might have: http://nymag.com/news/features/69789/

back. and mostly the same

“Oh, well, I keep in touch with her. She was in my wedding-- my first wedding. I was married before this. I dated Justin Hornell all through high school, you know, and then I met my first husband and we got married real quick. And then this. Are y’all married? Oh, well, we lived together first, too. And let me tell you -- if y’all ever do get married-- we got married and got pregnant in three months. It can happen. And I don’t know if you want to know this. . . but then, after I stopped breastfeeding my little girl, we got pregnant again like that. . . .”

I went to my ten year high school reunion. I must have known this Heather at some point, but by this point I was glad she went to get some food, because I did not need any more details. And I’m pretty sure you can’t get pregnant from getting married. . . pretty sure.

When we got there, I was greeted by the lunch table where I didn’t sit in high school. Everyone had the exact same haircuts.

*********

I’ve been away for a few weeks, and some things have changed. My boy moved in. We’ve fought, like twice, but I don’t really see any reason for this not to work out. Work got busy, then calm, because things are easy with me and Sam in charge. Ted and I went to this reunion and to see my parents. We travel well together as long as I stay away from coffee. Next weekend we’re going to the beach with Julianna and Ed.

At dinner a few nights ago, sitting at the little table we’ve borrowed from his parents, I told Ted that I knew how the movie of my life would start:

It opens with I am a Rock by Simon and Garfunkel playing. I’d walk out of the subway, coming home from work. I’d nod shyly to a doorman, wait for the light and cross the street, I’d get to my shabby building, and there’d be no mail when I checked. In my little apartment with no furniture, I’d change clothes and fluff my hair. Then the music would stop-- silence-- and the scene would cut to me sitting across two huge plates from and average looking guy in a trendy restaurant. I’d say something inappropriate.

“Then what?”
“That’s as far as I’ve gotten.”

So I guess things have changed. Three years ago I’d take weekends off Facebook because the engagements were overwhelming. Memorial Day Weekend, four of my Facebook friends had babies. (One was cute; three were not.) I live with a boy. Today I came home from work and baked cookies so he could take them to poker night with the guys. I’m sure that pretty soon he’s going to start closing the shower curtain after he’s taken a shower.

’Cause even though some never do, people can change.


~beatrix

hindsight

The problem is that I could have married Baron. Not that I should have, but that I could have. And I could have just gone on believing that being in love is being possessed and that all bad the times can be buoyed by the good.

My parents were right, it turns out. They didn’t always dislike him, but I should have listened to them those last three years or so.

I fell in love with him when I was 15, maybe 14. He told me he loved me the first time on a folded sheet of notebook paper; we’d never even kissed. We got older. We had plans. We knew what we’d name our babies.

I thought I’d marry him. I thought I knew him.

I was wrong.

These days we don’t even talk. Soon he’s going to marry one of our high school friends. Baron lived with her while we were still together.

I’ll probably never quite know for sure how wrong I was.

The problem is that I could be wrong. That I can be wrong. That I might be wrong.

~beatrix

(this is a bonus happy snippet:

“So what did you do while I was away.”
“Man things. I licked a stripper, but only one.”
“Was she pretty?”
“Yes.”
“Prettier than me?”
“No.”)

brian

We were friends our freshman year of high school, but I hadn’t seen or talked to Brian for years, almost 10 probably. When he found his way back into my life (social networking sites: blessing or curse?) about two years ago, I wrote this. I apologize in advance for all the pent-up adolescent angst.


***
Maybe it’s because it was the first adult decision I ever had to make: Go left, or go right, with no one to help me choose. I’ve made a millions choices since, but there’s no way to know how different they would have been if I could change the first one.

He was beautiful. He was tall and slim, but he had the body of a boy. We were children. His face was chiseled. Dark, dark eyes had seen too much. Black hair was too long, and his skin was bronze. When he looked at me, I felt beautiful.

He was bad, not like me. He sold marijuana with his brothers. He had a condom in his wallet, not like a boy who wanted to show it off, but like he might use it. He never came to school on Fridays. He tied a noose with the cord on the blinds. He said my name like no one else.

The damages were thinly veiled.

My birthday falls at the beginning of January, before school starts back, and it pales in the shadow of Christmas and the New Year. He called me that year I knew him. He asked me if I got everything I wanted. I had to say yes. But I could only feel embarrassed.

He must have known everything from the way I looked at him, the way we looked at each other. It must have been there for him, too. I didn’t touch him. I didn’t tell him.

And when he asked, I didn’t say anything. And then I said no.

The other one was different. He had the right shirts, the right shoes. He waited for me. He passed me notes. When he called, we talked about television. He was quick to laugh, quick to joke. The damages were stashed inside.

We went to the movies. He held my hand. Sitting on the floor of his room, he kissed me. I loved him for a long time, even when it hurt. I loved him until it scared me. Then I kept loving him until one day I didn’t anymore. And it was over.

Memories fade, and people change.

It happened a long time ago, it feels a million years. And I chose. Go left or go right. Going straight never occurred to me. I chose. And I was still naïve, but I was not a child.

So when you ask me why it is so strange to talk to him now, after so long, that is why. Because I could have chosen him, and I could have a different life.
***

~beatrix