Different

I've been a little, well, off lately. Part of it is quite simply, mid-winter blues. Eliot called April "the cruelest month" but he's dead wrong. February is the worst month, despite having both Lincoln's birthday and Spring Training. When snow falls on September 22nd, you've already had four months of winter and you're staring down the barrel of another two months, at best. It's still snowing, still cold, and even if they days are getting longer, they're still cloudy and grey for the most part. Even my Happy Light and multivitamins aren't taking the edge off this year. 

Then there's Valentine's Day.

I know, I know. Single, straight, female friend getting all angsty about being single on Valentine's Day, let's all just cross it off our sadness scavenger hunt and move on, all right? Additionally, as an ACHTUNG!, there will be no Public Radio AHA! moment at the end of this post . I'm not going to talk about how I come to love Valentine's Day because I meet some blind person on the street who tells me an incredible story about how their seeing-eye dog taught them that love comes in many forms. This post is also not going to end in the Rom-Com flowers being delivered to me at work from some guy who's been secretly enamored with me for years and is ohmygodtotallymyonetruelove.


I'm not normally the type of woman who gets all wigged out about Valentine's Day. I take some pride in that.  Personally, I'm usually more than a little amused by the fact that a Catholic Feast Day meant to celebrate a man's gruesome martyrdom has now become an opportunity for us to celebrate love and commitment. Call me pagan, but I don't like the vibes surrounding this one. Give me a good old bacchanal any day. Anyway, years ago, between boyfriends I decided to make Valentine's Day a non-holiday, much like I do for New Year's Eve. Since then, it's always been the same. Go to work, come home, make dinner, read or watch something on Netflix. No flowers, no candy, no boyfriends, but no angst either.

I don't know if it was going off birth control or what (by the way thanks, Skin, for assuming that now that we're off it you have to act like we're fourteen again) but my emotions are so out of whack lately that if I wasn't so busy almost crying/eating my weight in Girl Scout Cookies I'd make fun of myself. 

***

Andy and I are on a long walk around Lake Nokomis. We're in the middle of a snowstorm in the Cities, and the day is so ridiculously picturesque I feel like I'm in a Norman Rockwell painting. It's been an odd weekend for me, mainly because I've been, um, confessional beginning with my blog update last week. I spent a significant portion of Friday and Saturday nights with two of my favorite women, unloading all of the feelings I've had over the past week, kvetching about my various boy problems, and trying to expurgate the fact that I've been a stone cold bitch lately (it didn't work.) Regardless, I'm feeling a little more candid than I normally do, and Andy's always been easy to talk to. We're talking about houses, jobs, my love life, and he starts talking about kids. I can't run because we're 2.5 miles into our walk and I'm wearing Sorrel boots. When he pauses I blurt it out Idon'tthinkIwantkids. That confession is quickly followed by Idon'tactuallyreallylikekids.

Being a woman in your late 20s and admitting out loud, in public that you don't actually enjoy children feels a lot like what I imagine it would feel like to admit that you like to eat polar bear cubs. It's an admission I try to avoid making as often as possible because people react one of two ways. Either they look at you like you just kicked a puppy or (somehow more maddening) they insist that you haven't met the right kids yet!

I mean, for God's sake. I've expressed disinterest in any number of things in my life, but no one has ever tried to convince me you haven't met the right grizzly bear. I'm an above-average-intelligence, capable lady. I've met not an insignificant number of children and they're cute and all, but they're just not my cup of tea. 

I'm grateful for a lot of things about Andy. One of them is his ability to laugh at me and make me feel significantly less crazy. When he asks "Why?" I tell him everything that's been on my mind since my friends started having kids. I'm not the kind of girl to date a guy for a year and decide I want to get married, so by the time I finally do settle down, I'll be in the high-risk pregnancy category. I have, apparently, a family history of anxiety and I don't want to pass that on to my children and I worry about how much crazier I'll get after giving birth. I made the mistake of watching the documentary The Business of Being Born and am now terrified of and grossed out by childbirth. There are so many things I want to do with my life and having a family is going to keep me from doing all of them. Finally, let's be honest. Despite whatever advances women have made, we're still the ones who sacrifice something when we decide to have a family, whether it's our careers, our sanity, or our family life, something has to give. At twenty-eight, it just seems easier not to have a family. And since I'm not crazy about kids . . .

"I don't know if we'll ever ask you to baby-sit."
"Thank God."

***

In my head a keep a running tally of the things I think would make me a good partner. It's the pep-talk I give myself before (and after) dates. I'm a good cook, a very good baker, an exceptional listener, I don't stay angry for long periods of time, I have an endearing laugh and a good sense of humor, am GGG, I'm well-read, and as long as I'm not leaving you a voicemail, I'm articulate. 

In my head I also keep a running tally of the things that worry me about dating someone long-term. I have anxiety, I can be self-involved, I'm devastated by criticism, I'm terrible at meeting new people, I can be a bit dramatic. I also bite my nails, curse like a sailor, use commas superfluously, listen to the same song on repeat for hours, and hate cleaning the bathroom. And let's not even mention the weird shit that goes on in my sleep. 

I've always felt like somewhere there would be someone who'd be willing to put up with all the crazy in exchange for the good things. That's the point of relationships, right? We never get everything we want and we put up with a lot of stuff we dislike, but we do it because the one outweighs the other. But now, when I see this list in my head what jumps out at me is not "exceptional listener" in the positive column or even "cursing like a sailor" in the negative column. It's likely does not want kids, which in my mind's eye is in red. With double underlines. And exclamation points.

It's stupid, I know, but I feel like not wanting children is going to be the one thing that pushes me over from quirky, adorable, still-dateable feminist to don't-touch-her-with-a-ten-foot-pole woman. Trust me, I can see the logical fallacy in this, but here in the Upper Midwest (particularly my family) people get married in their early 20s and have children by 32 at the latest. Any deviation from that norm makes you, to use the Minnesotan term, different. Now with Valentine's Day looming at the end of the week, it's hard not to wonder if  my passion for reproductive rights, my desire to go fifteen rounds over shit that matters with a guy before I can consider dating him, and my weird enthusiasms for cigars and comic books and Joss Whedon already make me different enough. I'm freaked that this kids thing is going to be one too many things different about me. 

Fuck Valentine's Day. 

Let me turn on my Happy Light, finish this Caramel Delite, and then we can see what's next on the scavenger hunt.