You're next ⏰
“You’re next,” they say. Next to turn thirteen, next to get your driver’s license, next to get a boyfriend, next to go to college, next to get a job, next to get engaged, get married — you’re always next. The last ‘next’, of course, is pregnancy. “You’re next,” they say while you bounce your friend’s baby on your knees at the one-year-old’s birthday party. You swat mosquitoes and smile. The baby wants to be bounced, wants to face everyone else, wants to look at the tree, wants to tug your hair, gum your shoulder, search for your nipple even though there’s nothing there. But does the baby want to be born? You wonder. You feel guilt for wondering. You childless hag, you taunt yourself — children are the ultimate joy, they say, and you’re next in line to receive god’s greatest gift.
But will you receive it? You wonder if your wondering is already grounds for disqualification: surely I don’t really want to have a kid if this is what I’m thinking about. How could you wonder whether or not a baby wants to be born? How could you waste time on existential questions that, of course, have no answer? You have so much to offer to a child, they say, and you don’t question if that’s true — you question if you would ask too much of a child, if there’s something deeply wrong with the way you wonder about what the experience could offer you.
When I imagine having a kid, I imagine my baby shower. I plan the party in my mind — co-ed, open bar, ~not like other baby showers~. I think about Rihanna’s pregnancy outfits. I think about the fluid in my womb and how I would stay so hydrated, eat plenty of nutrient-dense food, take the right supplements — it would be like the water in Turks & Caicos, I think, so perfect. I try to bat these thoughts away, tell myself they’re superficial and unrealistic. I think of my husband teaching our hypothetical child about all the things he knows: speaking Spanish, cooking, playing guitar, poker, all the random trivia I always tease him for knowing. I think of what I could teach them: the right way to care for their inevitably curly hair, how to eat a snack in bed without getting crumbs everywhere (you inhale after each bite, like a little vacuum), how to layer oil, moisturizer, body spray, and perfume for the right signature fragrance. I compare the two lists and I think about my vanity again.
You’ll love them no matter what, they say, when I confide about my uneasiness with the dice roll of genetics. I grew up with a sibling who needed different care, extra help — nothing could’ve been detected or prevented, it just ended up that way. When they talk about love, they don’t understand that love isn’t the issue. There’s more pain when the world is hostile to the person you love — you can’t change the world to embrace them and bend to their needs. You can try, and you will, and some things will shift, but you can’t remove the pain of being unable to change other people and how they treat the person you love, how other people’s love or compassion or cruelty or indifference impacts the life of the person you love. You have to create resources yourself, constantly solve problems, always feel inadequate in the face of the world that doesn’t care.
I’m not sure that I’m a pessimist, but I have a lot of fear. I say that I don’t know what I want, but maybe I’m afraid of what I want and what it says about me. We fear the unknown, sure, but aren’t we more scared of enduring that past pain again? Does anyone want to risk revisiting their deepest wounds? That’s the risk everyone takes when they create a whole person who will live in the future, I guess.
I don’t want to share my sad little musings, but in a way, I feel like a liar when I don’t. I can’t, in conversation, tell people what I really mean when they say ‘you’re next’ and I say that I’m not sure and I smile — can’t ruin parties, new friendships, meaningful milestones. On the drive home, I think in circles and I write it out in my head and I think that maybe I’ll write it down and I’ll feel differently. I feel nervous and then I feel nothing.