A Bun In The Oven

I have a lot of things I want to write about but I don't know which one to write about first because when I write, there's always a lot of emotion behind it and if I don't feel anything about it anymore, I deem it unimportant and I would lose the fuel to write it. I know, Virginia Woolf would say that my emotions impeded the artistic integrity of my writing but I'm trying to channel a bit more Plath now okay.

Anyways, the subject of the day - babies.

I've been thinking about it for a long time now, and let me say I'm surprised at how my train of thought developed to this stage. I am a kids person, I love tiny humans and by default have always come to the assumption that one day, in the natural order of life, I would grow up, get married to the handsomest man on earth and have kids. That was The Plan.

I became super excited when a number of my own friends got married and became pregnant (yes, in that order - I have friends from all age ranges so don't be so quick to jump the gun okay). I'd visit them and play with them every Sunday after church. I loved to draw comparisons between baby and daddy's behaviour or mommy's looks and I had no problems babysitting any of them. The thought of having my own kids was something 'natural' to me and although I knew it was no joke, I assumed that I would be a good mom because I loved kids and am good with them now.

And then one day I started my internship at Teach For Malaysia. I had a 9-6 job and travelling to the office in the city took about a 17 minute car ride, 30 minute train ride and a 7 minute walk. Most of those days when I was waiting on the platform for my KTM (God bless their souls), I'd slowly feel the remainder of my energy and brainpower sapping out and by the time I reached my station, I would have gone into autopilot mode.

I was talking to my mother about how tiring working life is and then she said 'Yeah, imagine when you have kids - come back all tired still have to cook dinner, and deal with a rude, screaming kid who won't do his homework.'

That was kind of like an epiphanous moment for me (epiphanous is a word, I checked) and it started building the blocks for the I Don't Want To Have Kids pyramid. And then another one of my closer friends was about to give birth to her first child and she told me about the discomfort of pregnancy and how not all mothers necessarily have that 'glow of motherhood'.

She recently gave birth to the most adorable cutie patootie ever and I had the privilege of hanging out with them yesterday. And although it didn't look it, she was tired from not getting enough sleep in the night, having to breastfeed every hour, deal with a finicky baby and dealing with cabin fever as well as physical and hormonal changes. Maternity leave is only 2 months, so her MIL has been encouraging her to take another month of unpaid leave to look after the baby.

It seems like a lot to me. I love kids, and my friend does love her new son very much and says that yes there are good moments too, but it's so intimidating. I'm not the kind to fuss about people - I've always been a firm believer in not spoiling anybody (unless there are special occasions) so I think I'd be so impatient with 1) not having enough sleep, 2) cabin fever, 3) dealing with body problems that come with pregnancy, 4) having to revolve my schedule around 1-3 tiny humans who will probably be as stubborn and difficult as I was/am as a child.

And men and women have different views about pregnancy. I talked to the LTP about it and he was like 'but why? Kids are great! It's like seeing yourself in a whole other person and it's like creating the future'. And I kind of knew that 'the future' was probably something to do with heritage and ensuring that their family bloodline is continued - guys can be really sooo self-obsessed sometimes. There's nothing wrong with passing on the family bloodline; it's just that they will look at the baby and see the whole world in them whereas I'm not sure if I can look at the baby and not see someone who just tore up my body, heart, soul and mind. I'm not unselfish - parents can do a lot of damage to their kids and I don't know if I have what it takes to raise a child and not screw him up. Kid doesn't say 'Thank you'? Blame the parents. Kid tells a lie? Blame the mother. Kid grows up to be chain smoker/compulsive gambler/alcoholic/woman hater/serial killer? It's dem parents who never taught him right. Kid never stood a chance. Truth is, I think so because if it hadn't been for God, I would have probably ended up being one of those things listed above. I can pray for him and bring him to church and do my best to model Christlikeness to him, but I can't guarantee that the same circumstances which turned me to God will happen for him. I trust that God is gracious enough to lead my kids into the best possible plans for their lives, but I'm not perfect and I don't want to be the mother that screws that up.

Don't get me wrong, LTP and I are doing great and we really do care and want the best for each other - but me choosing not to have kids does affect some long term decisions. We're not at the time to make those decisions yet, but eventually this relationship will move along and we'll come to that place when the future is not 2 or 3 or 4 years away and it will be make or break.

I love kids, very much. I love babies and it really is such a miracle that God creates life in such a beautiful way but you know, maybe because I'm in the 'best years of one's life' or so everyone says, I kind of just want to have my life not wrap around someone else who's entirely dependent on me for basic survival. Maybe in a few years time things will change. That same friend did say that pregnancy gives new life to a marriage and it's like God's way of saying 'time to move up another level' - and I do, I do want to move up to all possible levels of God's plan for me - but for now, the decision remains unmade and I'll just enjoy time as babysitter for a day.

White-haired and happy-bellied

Pre-script: Sometimes I wish I was more enthusiastic about writing than I am about the way my blog looks. I'm so concerned with the way things look sometimes. So shallow #embarrassed. Yes I use hashtags in non-Twitterverse because I like it.

Anyways, I knew that when I came back to writing, this would be the first thing I would want to write about: and that is the subject of my grandmother.

It would have been 3 days to being a month since she has left and sometimes I still don't quite get it. I was having dinner today and it was a good dinner and I immediately thought of 'mama would have liked this place.' before I realized what I was thinking.

I was rather disconnected from reality because she started getting sick again while I was away in Singapore (another reason why I felt Singapore was really really bad timing) and so the image of mama prior to my departure was so different from the reality fo mama after I came back. What used to be a sprightly, upbeat old lady with a pixie haircut was bloated, reddish and tired. She went to the hospital and I got busy doing an internship and I quickly saw her deteriorate into a fragment of what she was; she was upbeat for me, for us but I knew deep inside she too was disappointed at how rapidly the cancer begin to dictate what she could or could not do.

And then one night she was gone. I will forever be grateful that the last thing I said to her was 'I love you and I'll see you tomorrow'. I will forever regret not being able to be there with her when she left us. My sister and I look at what was and still is Mama's house and we both admit to feeling orphaned because we've had our grandparents with us our whole lives and then suddenly losing both of them within 4 short years meant that we had to readjust almost 19 years of mama and yehyeh.

Grandparents are a different dimension of family and it is a terrible poverty to not have known mama and yehyeh. They were the coolest pair of grandparents ever and I will miss this extra layer of covering and protection that they gave me. I have no elegant way of concluding this post except for the fact that I still wish very much that they could have remained wrinkly, old people-smelling, white-haired and happy-bellied forever.

A Reprise

I don't know why I ever gave up writing. I used to think it was an indulgence - or that I had to be one of those celebrity bloggers with lots of pictures and interesting quips to blog or hold an audience.

But I think I've sort of discovered that blogging is expression for me. Or rather, writing is. The desire to put coherence and aesthetic into a flow of thought - that in itself is a thing of beauty and achievement for me. Maybe it's all the Virginia Woolf I've been reading, or maybe it's the fact that my long term partner is far away in some cold country and we don't have as much time for indulging thoughts any more - but I think I'm back to writing. You probably have a very good reason not to trust me when I say that, but I think I write no longer for an audience or anything, though you are of course very welcome to read and comment (:

That being said, I thus conclude today's post in a zillion years (: hopefully, more to come.