life and puppies

This is not a great article, but it made me want to blog today about something I think a lot about.

Lately it seems that I am going to a baby shower every other day.  Of course this is not actually true.  But I am at a stage in my life where I seem to always have at least one friend who is preggers.  Right now, I can name four friends who are with child.  I can also name several more who have produced babes in the last year or so.  I still have a lot friends who, like me, are childless, but those numbers are dropping quickly. 

Where am I going with this, you ask.  Well, I’ll tell you.  I like kids.  I like babies.  I like kids more, but babies are fun.  I think I’m pretty good with kids.  I think I’m pretty funny and a decent person to have around your kid.  Yet, I still don’t know — and I’m 35 — whether or not I want one of my own.  Most women I know seem to be pretty clear on the answer to that question, but I am not.  Of course, at some point — and maybe that point is now — I won’t be able to have one, whether I want to or not.  I don’t know if I want to be pregnant.  I don’t know if I want to adopt.  I don’t know if I want another person living in my house. 

I think I have some of the biological desire for kids, but my head gets really caught up in the question.  Frankly, and I know this is going to be shocking, I see having a kid as a really selfish thing.  Not a bad thing, but a very self-centered thing (adoption aside, really).  I see it as saying, hey world, there should be more of me.  And hey world, support my offspring.

I do not condemn anyone for choosing to reproduce.  Obviously I don’t. Quite the contrary.  Like I said, I love kids.  I love my friends’ kids, I love my relatives’ kids.  I like babysitting and being around kids.  I just don’t know about one of my own.  I worry.

I worry about the environmental impact of bringing another person into this too crowded world.  I worry about the economic impact on me and the kid (I read recently that the average American child costs his/her parents $285k or something before you figure in the cost of college).  I worry that the kid would be unhealthy.  I worry that the kid would be too much like me.  I worry that I would mess the kid up in all sorts of stupid ways.  I worry that I would never get a decent amount of sleep again. 

I worry most of all that the kid would be unhappy.  The world is such a tough place.  And while I would hope I would do my best to smother the kid with love and support and patience and compassion and education and laughter and all things good and decent, I worry that the world would come between us.  I worry that I couldn’t stand seeing the heartbreak or the depression or the inevitable tears.  I worry I would pass along all of my neuroses and insecurities and produce an unhappy soul.

I just worry.  So, for now, I don’t know if I’ll remain childless forever like the women in the Slate article (though I note the oldest was, what? 32? I’m not sure those women can count as choosing-to-be-childless-for-life) or whether I’ll try to join the club of reproducers. 

Raoser last posted that she missed my blog.  That made me feel nice.  The truth is, I miss it too.  I have thought of at least a half dozen blog posts over the last week, but have not posted any of them.  By the time the idea (usually thought of on the bike ride to work or as I’m trying to fall asleep at night) came to my fingertips at the computer, it didn’t seem so relevant or interesting (I know, I set a low bar for this, so consider how bad the ideas must have been).  And today is probably no different but I feel like posting.  Interest be damned.

Music.  I grew up with my music.  I thought my house growing up was grand and extravagant, but I realize now that it was just nice and of pretty average size for an upper middle class family in Madison.  Maybe even undersized for that family.  Though it never felt small for me.  It had no garage, but it had a “music room.”  Actually, I always thought of it as a Music Room.  In the unfinished basement, my dad had crafted a semi-finished room that housed his serious stereo equipment (including four floor speakers), bookshelfs full of records, bookshelfs full of books and lots of stuff in lots of places.  It had an unused fireplace and an unfinished, but beamed-in, ceiling.  I can picture it as if I’m sitting here today.  It was my dad’s sanctuary.

My dad listens to music like it’s medicine.  Or, more specifially, like it’s Oxygen.  I’ve always had some admiration for that.  I realized recently that my interest in music waxes and wanes.  I rarely, if ever, come home and want to listen to music.  I’d rather watch television or read.  I don’t do well listening to music at work — lyrical or classical — because it distracts me.  I have trouble not thinking about the music, which makes it hard to concentrate on the task at hand. 

There have been times when I’ve been really into music.  I can point to certain times when I couldn’t get enough: (1) the Footloose soundtrack in fourth grade; (2) the Beatles in general in 8th grade; (3) everything Buddy Holly-like in high school; (4) the Dead/Phish/Dave Matthews in early college; (5) the Neil Young/Eric Clapton/Bob Dylan college years; (6) all things Tom Petty for decades; (7) Cowboy Junkies for a lifetime; (8) Neko Case forever.   When I hear a song I know and love, or a new (to me) song that catches me offguard, I’m right back there.  I’m interested, captivated and — frankly — nearly paralyzed by the sounds I hear.  Right now, I find myself missing that because I’m, well, waning at the moment.  When I listen to music I like, I become seriously emotionally involved.  Tears, laughter and involvement are the norm.  So, right now, when I feel like I’m juggling a bit too much, I’m not totally interested in involving myself in the emotional work that is music.

Is that bad?  Is it ok?  I don’t know.  I just know that that’s how I am.  I think that if I had an actual “commute” of any sort, I might return to music and I might be able to separate myself a bit more.  Or if I went back to running.  I might, then, be able to separate music from total emotional investment or, maybe even better, enjoy some music that doesn’t involve such a commitment.  But I don’t know. 

I know right now, though, that I miss music.  If that makes any sense.