Future/No Future/Unknown
I was reading Ed's blog the other day....his son started his first day of school.
It's so odd when I read stuff like that. Ed and I have been friends for close to 20 years now, and I remember a time when he said something to the effect of never wanting children because he didn't want to pollute the gene pool (yes, Ed, I will always remind you of that one ;-) )
Funny how time, maturity, and love can change us.
Since I read about this milestone in both Ed and his son's lives, I've been thinking more about my own sense of The Future--or lack thereof. Without children, there are few things to remind someone of The Future--other than the relentless forward slouching toward Gommorah that is emblematic of Popular Culture.
We adults have due dates and deadlines and sometimes even our own accomplishment milestones. But they're not the same as when we have children. Those milestones--such as the first day of school--are touchstones for us. These events remind us of our own touchstone/milestones and give us something of a backward/forward perspective. We know that if there is a first day of school for our child, there has been a first day of school for us, and that, as we had a future, there is a Future for our child.
While others were having children and careers, I had illness. Illness stops time, doesn't give one much of a future. It becomes difficult to see that things may change--because they may not. And, without certain touchstones in the healing process, such as the end of a treatment or something to that effect, we can forget that the illness is over. This is particularly difficult for me, as my illness changed so much for my body, and for me--so much so that I still have trouble remembering that I'm not ill anymore.
There's more to it though. As I was reading Ed's response to my comment, I was reminded of my Mother. She often talked of me and my sister as Her Children. We were never really adults. And The Future was always about how she would be getting old, who would take care of her, what illness would take her over, how she was going to die and did not want to die alone. Our lives were, in some way, about her death.
I know all of this has had a very profound effect on us both. I see it in my niece and nephew and all their problems...and I see it in myself. There are few days that go by where my mother's pain does not come in to my consciousness--sometimes out of guilt that I am living my own life. Some of this is out of anger--anger that she couldn't be the kind of mother I wanted, anger at my grandmother for being so abusive towards a small helpless child who did not ask to be born, and anger at the secrets that wrapped us in crippling shrouds from which none of us could escape.
My body's never given me a clear signal that illness is over--perhaps that's because with the body, it's Always Something. That's nature. We can try to fight Nature, but there's always a part of physical human Nature that we learn to accept. Death is inevitable, but not really all that overwhelming in the grander scheme of Life.
The worst, though, is that my Mother imbued me with a sense of Death rather than of The Future. I see how it was her responsibility to do so, but there was such profound hurt, which lead to a profound selfishness. Combined with my own illness, I feel as if I have been left bereft of a Future.
When my Mother died, I felt I was actually free to have my own future.
I remember saying that both my life and my sister's were all about this ending, and that neither of us had prepared for a life without our Mother--because my Mother never helped us plan for our own Futures.
In some ways, I am still stuck in the dreams I had as a young twenty-something. I am stuck in the dreams of becoming a Writer. I am determined to have that dream come true, one way or another, because it is the only dream I was able to hold on to during all those years I was buried under the Future of my Mother's Death.
Some days I don't know what to do with this feeling of a loss of a Future. How do I go about understanding the Future? Do I go into a panic and have a child against all the odds? Do I have a child with a man who doesn't want a child? Or with a man who can't be a Father to my child? Do I throw myself into working with children to satisfy my curiosity about the future? Do I stay in a fate that seems to be one of constantly mourning my Mother's sad life because that is how she would have wanted things to be in my life?
I have no idea how to get out of this.
We are leaving for Maine in a couple of hours. Bar Harbor for some hiking. There are some changes ahead of me--one I know of is that I will be moving soon. There are others, too. I'm not sure what they are. In my bones there's a sense of things changing--maybe, for adults, that's a way of sensing the Future. It's something of an amorphous feeling though--something nebulous about to change for me. It's all Unknown, and kind of creepy and nerve-wracking as much as it is exciting because it's so Unknown. At least, though, I'm not sitting around waiting for Death--and forcing someone else to wait with me. At least I'm not that selfish.
It's so odd when I read stuff like that. Ed and I have been friends for close to 20 years now, and I remember a time when he said something to the effect of never wanting children because he didn't want to pollute the gene pool (yes, Ed, I will always remind you of that one ;-) )
Funny how time, maturity, and love can change us.
Since I read about this milestone in both Ed and his son's lives, I've been thinking more about my own sense of The Future--or lack thereof. Without children, there are few things to remind someone of The Future--other than the relentless forward slouching toward Gommorah that is emblematic of Popular Culture.
We adults have due dates and deadlines and sometimes even our own accomplishment milestones. But they're not the same as when we have children. Those milestones--such as the first day of school--are touchstones for us. These events remind us of our own touchstone/milestones and give us something of a backward/forward perspective. We know that if there is a first day of school for our child, there has been a first day of school for us, and that, as we had a future, there is a Future for our child.
While others were having children and careers, I had illness. Illness stops time, doesn't give one much of a future. It becomes difficult to see that things may change--because they may not. And, without certain touchstones in the healing process, such as the end of a treatment or something to that effect, we can forget that the illness is over. This is particularly difficult for me, as my illness changed so much for my body, and for me--so much so that I still have trouble remembering that I'm not ill anymore.
There's more to it though. As I was reading Ed's response to my comment, I was reminded of my Mother. She often talked of me and my sister as Her Children. We were never really adults. And The Future was always about how she would be getting old, who would take care of her, what illness would take her over, how she was going to die and did not want to die alone. Our lives were, in some way, about her death.
I know all of this has had a very profound effect on us both. I see it in my niece and nephew and all their problems...and I see it in myself. There are few days that go by where my mother's pain does not come in to my consciousness--sometimes out of guilt that I am living my own life. Some of this is out of anger--anger that she couldn't be the kind of mother I wanted, anger at my grandmother for being so abusive towards a small helpless child who did not ask to be born, and anger at the secrets that wrapped us in crippling shrouds from which none of us could escape.
My body's never given me a clear signal that illness is over--perhaps that's because with the body, it's Always Something. That's nature. We can try to fight Nature, but there's always a part of physical human Nature that we learn to accept. Death is inevitable, but not really all that overwhelming in the grander scheme of Life.
The worst, though, is that my Mother imbued me with a sense of Death rather than of The Future. I see how it was her responsibility to do so, but there was such profound hurt, which lead to a profound selfishness. Combined with my own illness, I feel as if I have been left bereft of a Future.
When my Mother died, I felt I was actually free to have my own future.
I remember saying that both my life and my sister's were all about this ending, and that neither of us had prepared for a life without our Mother--because my Mother never helped us plan for our own Futures.
In some ways, I am still stuck in the dreams I had as a young twenty-something. I am stuck in the dreams of becoming a Writer. I am determined to have that dream come true, one way or another, because it is the only dream I was able to hold on to during all those years I was buried under the Future of my Mother's Death.
Some days I don't know what to do with this feeling of a loss of a Future. How do I go about understanding the Future? Do I go into a panic and have a child against all the odds? Do I have a child with a man who doesn't want a child? Or with a man who can't be a Father to my child? Do I throw myself into working with children to satisfy my curiosity about the future? Do I stay in a fate that seems to be one of constantly mourning my Mother's sad life because that is how she would have wanted things to be in my life?
I have no idea how to get out of this.
We are leaving for Maine in a couple of hours. Bar Harbor for some hiking. There are some changes ahead of me--one I know of is that I will be moving soon. There are others, too. I'm not sure what they are. In my bones there's a sense of things changing--maybe, for adults, that's a way of sensing the Future. It's something of an amorphous feeling though--something nebulous about to change for me. It's all Unknown, and kind of creepy and nerve-wracking as much as it is exciting because it's so Unknown. At least, though, I'm not sitting around waiting for Death--and forcing someone else to wait with me. At least I'm not that selfish.
posted by Tish Grier at 8:58 AM
5 Comments:
I still have a mother like yours, and I am the one stuck taking care of her now that she is 90. Having someone to take care of you in our old age is not a good reason to have children, although for the previous generation that often was the case. Better to have close women friends who have similar lives. I envy you your freedom to make your own choices. Enjpy.
Hi Elaine...
thanks for stopping by....over the years, I've read many of your blog entries on your relationship with your mom...
a few years back when I was doing a research project on historic houses, I was shocked at the number of youngest daughters who stayed on as their father's or mother's companions--never marrying. Some of them seem to have transformed their parents homes in interesting ways--but that was only the ones who came from weathly families. Thing is, for many, it was the biggest sacrifice they ever made.
I always wonder if the whole children taking care of parents thing has to do with bad parenting or something else--like a problem with women being independent. I think, ultimately, we all end up wrestling with some level of guilt because nothing seems to be enough
I don't nkow how I knew it was time to have kids. I just KNEW. The Jungians would have a lot to say on that, I guess, but I'm not going to try to pick it apart.
Yes, kids represent The Future, but in more ways than what you describe. With kids, The Future is ALL you have, because when that first child is born, life as you once knew it is over.
OTOH, I don't see my kids as an embodiment of The Future, as much as I see them as extra pairs of eyes through which to look at the world. That, and I can indulge my lifelong love of playing with stuffed animals, and with a kid nearby, people don't think I'm crazy. :)
Did I pollute the gene pool? I guess we'll find out sometime in The Future.
I've come to the belief that "polluting the gene pool" could have less to do with actual genetics than with other factors that make a family. One can be amazingly healthy and smart in lots of ways and have all sorts of dysfunction that make having kids a bad decision (speaking of myself here.)
In many ways I never wanted the kind of Future that you describe because there was so much pain in the past--I wasn't sure if I could make it past any of that. Then again, my choice of partners was always godawful, and that didn't help the matter. So, I look to other things for a future....sometimes though, it's hard.
My first visit to your blog and what an amazing post I happened upon. Wow. I will definitely be back for more reading when I have time.
As a last thought - this one from Elaine Maxwell not me btw - "My will shall shape the future. Whether I fail or succeed shall be no man's doing but my own. I am the force; I can clear any obstacle before me or I can be lost in the maze. My choice; my responsibility; win or lose, only I hold the key to my destiny."
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