Please stop asking people if they are planning to have kids

No kids? No problem. Pass the Chardonnay…

Mourning the absence of something that was never there is a solitary kind of pain. Sometimes it hits me from the smallest thing: A little blonde kid at a grocery store, begging for some sugary cereal. Reading about some celebrity who’s pregnant at, like, 50.

Last night, it was when the takeout was arriving at our place, and I went to the kitchen to get the plates. Two plates. Not 3 or 4. Two. The space where more plates should go just sitting there empty, loud, lonely. Reminding me of what is absent. And, more, what will never be.

It’s why I sometimes can’t talk about your kids with you. I’ll change the subject or just half-listen, nodding along.

It’s why I will find myself feeling resentment at people who have more than one kid, or at a glowing pregnant woman.  When undergoing fertility treatments, I once got on the elevator with a woman with four kids, who was also pregnant. I had to close my eyes and count to ten. Not my proudest moment.

It’s why I will NEVER ask another human being if they have kids of their own, and why I sometimes take a pause if you ask me if I do.

It’s why I brace myself, after telling you that I don’t have kids, for you asking why not, encouraging me to do so, telling me, “don’t give up,” or (my personal favorite in the “unsolicited & unwanted ‘advice’” category) encouraging us to adopt. Please, let’s call a moratorium on that. Some people, my dear friends, do end up truly, involuntarily, childless. And any opinions or seeming-encouragements are just daggers right to the heart.

It’s why I will have a hard time not telling you to f**k off when you complain about your kid. Sometimes I’ll blurt, “At least you have a kid,” then wait for your inevitable joke, “Well, do you want mine?” Please, let’s call a moratorium on that, too. No, I don’t want yours.

I want my own. 

It’s why I sometimes can’t look at photos of your kids on IG or FB (much less click “like”), and why I have to avoid social media on Easter, the first day of school, or Halloween. And why I’ll “snooze” or even unfollow you if you start posting sonogram photos of the little being inside you. My heart can’t take it.

Am I happy FOR you? Yes. But, WITH you? Hmm, I’m still working on that.

Before you ask, yes, I have done counseling, different kinds, over the years. I have tried meditation, prayer, trauma therapy, talking about it with select friends, not talking about it at all. I’ve tried drugs, prescribed ones and semi-legal ones, at least in some states. I finally landed on white wine, which is where I am now. Healthy? Nope. Self-medication? You betcha. 

When I look down the long barrel of my future, it shows my husband and me, but that’s it. Yes, we are happy. But when we grow old, there will be no one there with us. (And, yes of course I know that there are some people who have children but still won’t have that. Not helpful, Captain Obvious.)

But what to do with all of that alone-ness? I won’t know until it happens. Sometimes it all seems pretty dark.

Most of you people with children say right about now, “be grateful for having a life that is still your own,” or “having kids isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” I get that. Most of the time I am very grateful for all that I have. This isn’t about that. 

This is about grief. 

Grief, plain and simple.  Just like following a death, it comes in waves, sometimes far apart, sometimes small, but nonetheless, there, under the surface, ready to pop out on a moment’s notice. Unplanned and unannounced and at the most inopportune times. Like at the grocery store.

This is usually the part of these “we-want-to-have-kids-so-bad” essays where you are told that, after years of trying, fertility treatments & then giving up, bam! We finally got pregnant!

Nope, that’s not how this story ends. 

Instead, this story is about remembering to look on the bright side, like that we’re taking the time and money we would have spend on kids and filling it with travel and fun and adventure…living in other countries, going to all the Olympic Games that we can, exploring places like Yellowstone Park and Antarctica, dining out pretty much all the time, and showering affection on our kitty cat who gets to remain the center of our lives. I have amazing life-long friends who will be with me until the end. I am a “fairy” godmother to a spunky little blue-eyed girl, and an “aunt” to my girlfriends’ kids, which means a lot.

And, sure, I never had to worry about all the physical side-effects of having a kid. But that’s not the end of this story, either.

I hope someday this story will end with me forgiving myself for not having a kid, for not giving my husband a son or a daughter, for not giving our parents a grandchild, for longing for something I don’t have when I already have so much, for being snarky in this very essay, and for sometimes drinking too much Chardonnay.

Today this story is about me looking at the second half of my life with altered expectations and trying my absolute damndest to look forward to it.

But, truly, sometimes I would settle for not feeling the tiniest bit of resentment when I spot you and the little tow-headed, blue-eyed kid in the cereal aisle of Kroger.

And when I do, I’ll try my best not to buy him the Cocoa-puffs.

Try.