secret dreams

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there's one thing that i find really frustrating about new years each and every year. in fact it gets more frustrating the older i get. somehow, no matter how good my life is and no matter how happy i am i end up in a stew of introspection that i have a hard time getting out of.

this year (as you all know) i'm thinking about men and families and more specifically the yes or no of having kids. because i'm single i have to think about doing it alone and you know? although emotionally i want to do it very much there's a reasoning brain that's going 'uh dude?'

i'm sort of quoting someone i'm close to on the above but since she summed up my own feelings and since she won't mind if i quote her with no credit i'm doing so. (course if she wants me to i'll credit her thoughts) anyway the point is that there's this disconnect somewhere. there's the part of me that fully expects to make babies and to have a family around me when i'm 60 and the part of me that wants (for example) a pilates studio/loft of my very own and it seems like i'm going to have to choose between them.

so then i think that maybe i'm just rushing into things and that if i slow down and take a breath and just let my life happen that all of the things that i want will just come to me. except that's what i do. i let my life happen and somehow? that ain't happening.

somehow i'm 34 years old with no real prospects for family. and i KNOW that at least half of you are thinking 'oh just let it happen' or 'when you least expect it' or... and that's fine y'all but although it's the lamest thing ever the cliche about biological clocks exists for a reason. i can't tell you how tired i am of hearing that i have lots of time. i don't have lots of time. i have at most 5 years left where i'll be like usefully fertile and within a year of now the scary odds get a lot scarier. I *had* lots of time when i was 24 for sure... but that was then and this? this isn't.

so now there's a little voice saying 'well dude, why don't you open your studio and then adopt a 5 year old foster kid when you're 40?' and there's no counter voice. there's no piece of me saying 'that's a bad plan dude, don't do it.' in fact it sounds like an excellent plan.

it sounds a hell of a lot better than bankrupting myself at a sperm bank or giving up buying a place to live/work so i can have a kid. it sounds a lot healthier than worrying about it now... but then i think 'didn't you want one that was yours?'

and i did. but maybe that's another one of those wants/needs things. maybe i should think instead about the (for example) cats that i've loved. i didn't bear any of them (shut up!) and i didn't pick any of them as kittens either. in fact they were all rescues. and i love(d) each and every cat that i've ever had and a few that belonged to other people.

so maybe recognizing that the maternal instincts that i have will take over REGARDLESS of the blood connection between myself and a young human is what i'm supposed to be doing. [and it wouldn't suck to keep my pretty stomach... though other parental pilates teachers i know got theirs back]

[jack johnson is too good to listen to while blogging, it's distracting... especially that bubble song]

maybe i'm just supposed to go with my backup dream that involves a beautiful piece of land and a gaggle of kids that need rescuing. i don't really talk about this one much because it's so close to my heart AND because i'm not mature enough to do it yet.

it's funny that i talk about pretty much anything but when it comes to something that i cherish? that i feel ridiculously egotistical for contemplating?

anyway many years ago i read the smoke jumper by nicholas evans (good book actually, worth a week or two... can't say it's worth a year - so decide based on your reading speed) and there was a character who was doing counselling with lost teens.

they had this program where previously lost teens would rescue newly lost teens and so on. uh yeah please tell me that made sense.

so, i read about this and it just sort of came to me fully formed in an instant. this vision of a piece of land somewhere remote that worked like an old time farm except the 'hands' were all healers (mind, body or soul) or kids who were in various stages of healing.

basically a family that i build that is filled with lost souls that save each other. what hubris to believe i could accomplish such a thing and yet that's one of those images in the back of my skull. sometimes i stick surfing in it too but i wonder sometimes if it would be safe to have an ocean around lost children.

i think so,

i mean i've spent many a day sitting on a beach and staring at the waves. and i've spent many more frolicking in those waves and i know that the sea is a place that heals. so i stick a little cliff and a teeny beach and waves in the dream (notice the little cliff for climbing? yeah? yeah? :) and i wonder if i'm allowed to change such a picture.

cause you know what? i keep *talking* about going sperm shopping but i ain't doing shit about it. i'm not doing research. i'm not looking around for men to ask. i'm not shopping the freely available sperm bank websites. i'm not investigating my fertility although i said i would at 33. i'm not really doing anything except musing into my blog.

so maybe i'm full of shit huh? maybe i'm just posturing when i say that i want to be a single mom. maybe what i want instead is a whole gaggle of kids that i didn't make (or someone to do it with... but that's a whole other post).

*shakes head*

food for thought anyway.