The In-Between Life

I am not a Mom and I will never be a Mom. When I share this fact with people I am almost always greeted with sympathy, as if I am somehow incomplete as a woman. If I am, I have yet to discover that fact about myself; I feel pretty complete as-is...with the exception of the parts that were surgically removed from me in order to keep me alive.

If you were able to put two and two together and come up with "Oh! She had her uterus removed!" then good for you; I will explain no further. For those who are still confused I suggest you take a course in basic human anatomy. From this point on, all I will say on the subject of why is that if you ask me no questions, I will tell you no lies. The difference between secrecy and privacy is in the details I choose not to share.

While I may not be a Mom, I am an Auntie to numerous nephews and nieces, and the "cool grown-up" to my cousins' young children (as the five-year-old so succinctly put it, "You're pouring your soda into a glass instead of drinking it from the can, so you must be a grown-up, but your more fun than other grown-ups"). As an Auntie/Fun Grown-Up, I do not have the pressures of being a parent by the simple fact that I can pick and choose when and where to be accessible to the children in my life, allowing me to properly plan - if I am going to be playing soccer or volleyball with the older kids, it's best I bring my sneakers; if the toddlers are going to be there, replete with sticky hands and runny noses, it's best not to wear a cashmere sweater. Sometimes life throws a curve-ball in the form of surprise visits from the little ones, and I need to go with the flow in order to maintain my (Sesame) street cred. Last night was one of those moments.

My brother-in-law brought by his three youngest children - ages 8, 3, and 16 months, and while I am always glad to see my nieces and nephew, my house is not childproofed and is far from child-friendly. I keep crayons, drawing paper, and coloring books in the office supply closet, but that's about it when it comes to children's entertainment. I don't dare turn on the television - the baby has learned how to operate the remote control, and I have no parental controls on my cable box. I am not sure I would know how to turn them on, if I could even find them, and the last thing I want is for her to tune into my Netflix account and to start streaming Orange Is The New Black. All I need is for the 8-year-old fashionista to start asking her Mom if she can wear more orange, since it is the new black.

Because I am an excellent cook (or so I have been told), the children all want to eat at my house; being children, all they want to eat Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (I will admit to mixing the sauce before adding the macaroni, but nothing more incriminating than that!). The stuff is incredibly cheap, so I buy it by the metric ton at the wholesale club and donate most of it to the local food pantry, saving a few boxes for when I want a bad case of diabetic shock or for when the kids visit. Since I don't find a trip to the ER for acute hyperglycemia enjoyable, I happened to have enough "Donald Trump orange" pasta to go around (yes, I went there. Sorry, not sorry; I couldn't resist and you were all thinking it). On this rare occasion, the kids didn't want pasta. They wanted...bananas and apple juice. Did I mention that I am diabetic?

One of my life's ironies is that I always wanted to have children. I love children, and I love nurturing them. Children can sense that, and in their innocence they see me as an adult who can provide for them. The toddlers wanted bananas and apple juice, and looked to me for bananas and apple juice - as if no house could possibly ever be without these ridiculously high sugar foods, as if no adult they trusted would ever be unable to fulfill their needs. It just so happened that I am making my "famous" banana bread for a church bazaar this weekend, and had some non-overripe bananas left over (my banana bread requires bananas so ripe they are practically liquefied inside the peel). As for the apple juice, it's autumn in New England, so I keep cider in the house to mix seasonal drinks for friends; mixed one part cider/one part water it makes, as the three-year-old put it, "THE BEST APPLE JUICE EVER!". Everyday miracles are the best.

Sometimes, I mourn the fact that I never had children - I think "Shall be alone when I am old?" but remember that having children is no guarantee that they will remain geographically close. I sometimes wonder, "Who will want my stuff when I die?" and then remember that even I don't want half of the stuff I have and that it's time for a yard sale. I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have a little person growing inside me, and then a friend with children will ask me what it's like to still be able to wear tank tops and high heels and to not have to cross my legs when I sneeze or cough? On the other hand, there's an upside to just being an Auntie but not a Mom - the "in-between" life may not be for everybody, but it fits me perfectly!


KJM
11.08.18