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alone, part deux

It’s been a week.

A long week, an emotional week, a tiring week, a week where I’ve thought this is pretty good, I’m pretty lucky to have the family I do and in the next breath thought I’ll never make it out of here alive.

It was a week with my family. It’s what I’ve come to expect.

Funerals always bring out the extremes in family behavior, perhaps because we all deal with loss in a different way. My baba’s funeral wasn’t sad for me, because I honestly do think she’s in a better place, even if the better place is simply silence. To paraphrase Mr. Eliot, she lived with a bang! and went out with a whimper. For someone who had been through so much, she deserved some rest.

The wake and the post-funeral get together was a time to share stories and catch up with people I hadn’t seen in years. Some hadn’t seen me since I was 26, fifty pounds heavier and with my previous boyfriend, C. Some hadn’t seen me since I was 16, with a bad perm, heavy eyebrows, and my fashionable self-hatred. I stood behind the bar in my aunt and uncle’s game room and opened wine and mixed drinks. I made the rounds and caught everyone up, and I blushed more than once when people remarked at my transformation.

I went outside to join my mother and family friend E., a woman who sounds like Zsa Zsa Gabor, a woman who was a faghag before people in the sleepy Florida town knew what a faghag was, a woman who taught me about jewelry and facelifts.

Dahlink, she said in her Latvian accent, Dahlink you look so good. Sit down and tell me somethink.

E. wants to know where you’re going to get married, my mom said.

I raised and eyebrow and smiled. I’m not getting married.

But if you were going to get married, where would it be? That's all she wants to know, my mom continued.

In Vegas. I sipped my drink and turned to E. I’m not getting married.

She looked confused. Vy are you not getting married?

I don’t really need to. We’re perfectly happy how we are.

She frowned.

I might as well tell you that I’m not having kids, either, I continued.

My mother shrugged. She doesn’t want to, E.

E. looked at me, serious. You vill regret this.

Why? I asked.

Because you vill be alone.

I have family, I told her. I have Older SlackBrother J. and M. And slackbrother j. and SlackNiece-or-Nephew on the way. Not to mention I have A. He and Daisy are my family.

She shook her head. But J. and j. vill haf their own families. And A., who knows vat vill happen? And then you vill be alone.

So I’ll be alone, I told her. It’s okay.

It was her turn to raise an eyebrow.

I appreciate what you’re telling me, E., as it’s coming from a place of experience. I appreciate that you care enough to warn me of what you think the dangers are. But being alone isn’t something that scares me. I’ll be okay.

Okay, dahlink.

I got up and went to the bar to refresh my drink.

I looked around the room. My cousins’ offspring were bouncing off the walls, playing tag, running and tripping over each other. They were banging on the computer, yelling at the GameCube, tugging on a pant leg and declaring one of us it. They were crying and laughing and yelling and demanding that look at me, me, me.

Between my aunt’s children and my mother’s, there are seven kids. Four of them are married and have children (or are about to.) Out of the three non-marrieds, I’m the only one who’s currently in a long-term relationship. Therefore, I’m immediately suspect.

Why don’t I want to get married? Do I hate children?

You’d make a great mother, I’ve been told on many an occasion.

I don’t doubt this. I have a good idea at the amount of work that raising a child requires. I have nothing but respect those who manage to do it well. However, it’s just not a road that I want to travel. I would rather dedicate my time to myself, to my relationship with A., to my dog, to my writing, to my life which I enjoy for its simple little pleasures.

I am not depriving my parents of anything; their first grandchild is due this October. The human race will not die out because I’ve chosen not to procreate. A. has no desire to have children, either. And we both reached this conclusion independently of each other.

And I don't hate kids. I love kids. Until they start screaming, crying, and throwing tantrums. Then I like to give kids back to their parents.

For some reason, choosing not to have children makes me odd. Makes me selfish. One would think that someone who doesn't want to have kids who goes ahead and has them out of some sort of obligation, some sort of societal peer pressure, one would think that would be the person who would be selfish. It's a conundrum wrapped in a riddle wrapped up in a robin's-egg-blue package with a baby rattle: I'm responsible enough to have kids, but I'm not responsible enough to decide not to have kids.

When I was young, I never imagined my wedding or what it would be like to have a baby. I imagined scribbling autographs at my first book signing. I imagined my house filled with dogs. I imagined an arty boy who I’d laugh with over glasses of wine.

I rarely carried dolls. Instead I lugged around a small plastic grizzly bear. He had devil-red eyes and pointy fangs. I christened him my baby.

When I had to complete the rather gruesome assignment of writing my obituary for my sixth grade humanities class, I penned

She will be mourned by her pets and her plants.

Somehow, somewhere back in my brain, it was a decision I had made long ago.

I’ve been told that if A. and I were to get married, it would be different. More serious, more real. But I’m perfectly happy with the carefree, fantasy land we’ve concocted. Every day I wake up thinking I choose to spend another day with you and every night I go to bed thinking, I’ can't believe I get to fall asleep next to you. Every moment I steal a glance at him my stomach does flip-flops, every time I talk about him I can’t help but sound like a silly girl with a big crush.

I am not anti-marriage. Maybe later we’ll change our minds. Maybe not. But it's not a huge concern for me right now. I don't need to pin A. down, put our relationship in a convenient box tied up with a bow. It doesn't make me any less happy, it doesn't make our love any less real. It doesn't make our commitment to each other any less serious.

My thoughts are that every day he's here, he's choosing to commit to me. Every day, he has an option to go. As do I.

We're working without a safety net. We're working without a piece of paper that makes us legal in the eyes of the law and proper in the eyes of some people.

I'm totally comfortable with that.

Yesterday, I got on a small commuter plane in Pensacola. In front of me was a family with a fussy toddler and a screaming infant, and behind me was a woman who apparently thought seat-kicking was an Olympic sport. I was tired. I was grouchy. I just wanted to go home.

But I couldn’t help but think about what E. had said. You’ll be alone.

As the toddler’s plastic bottle went sailing past me, I thought I’ll be alone.

Thank god.