becoming what i will become

            Somehow, there are all these women out there living the life I’m supposed to be living.  The late-twenty something TV show writer, producer, actress who is literally living THE life I feel I should be (Ms. Lena Dunham, to be exact); the early thirty something momma that calls herself the Hipster Homemaker on Pinterest; the city girl who writes for Martha Stewart Living’s Everyday Food magazine and keeps up a very popular food blog.  I’m going through a time of crisis, of catharsis.  I am 33 years young (and on a good day feel like I am 25- TOPS), live with my grandmother taking care of her and all I have are visions of how I want my life to be.  I want children with a desperation that puts Scarlett O’Haras to shame, yet I have no boyfriend, no prospects for a boyfriend, and no desire to put myself out there to try and find one.  Yet the longing I feel is such it almost brings me to tears.  There was a time around when I turned thirty I felt the biological push so strongly to have children that I became quite promiscuous, but that didn’t really pan out.  How it is that something I want so, SO badly can be eluding my life so, SO constantly?  Usually, when I pray to God for something, I get it.  Not that I am spoiled by God, but it seemed that we just had this unspoken agreement- I ask, then I receive.  But I have been asking for a child for years, ever since I had a miscarriage at 24.  Yet, my requests have been met with absolutely no human baby.

So I started wondering if maybe I am not meant to have children of the human persuasion- that maybe my legacy will be with my prose instead of my offspring.  I started thinking this because I began to look at what God was giving me while I was begging so desperately for a child- so many opportunities to birth, but none of them resulting in a human baby.  Opportunities like being paid a living wage to write a movie, and being in the position to finally finish my bachelors degree by taking my dream writing class.  Maybe I am just doomed to be a spinster writer who stays in her apartment for days on end without leaving, surrounded by a clowder of cats and half-eaten baked goods, those bristly hair curlers tangled up in my matted, dirty hair.  Doomed?  Doomed sounds so harsh.  After all, these are gifts from god and are the fabric of the purpose of my life.  But is this really the purpose?  Is this really what I am good at?  Is it what I am meant for?  And how could this be it when it feels like something else is really “it”?

I’m learning to trust God, but it’s hard.  Maybe, I think to myself, God will reward me with a family and a baby when I finish this other stuff first.  I recently read an article by Lena Dunham honoring the late Nora Ephron.  Ms. Dunham expressed similar concerns as mine to her director friend to which Ephron replied: "You can’t meet someone until you’ve become what you’re becoming."  When I read that line, it all made sense.  That was why I hadn't met the man of my dreams and why I had no children- because I was in the process of becoming who I am supposed to become.  Not only did it console me because now I had a reason, but other women had gone through this same time of uncertainty and made it through to the other side.  Now all of my "stuff" made a little bit more sense.

But why does it just feel like “stuff” to me?  Why can’t I embrace the amazing opportunities that have been so generously given to me?  I cannot tell a lie- my desire to have a family of my own is so primal and fierce that it is cellular.  With every fiber of my being it is what I want, down to the stray-growing hairs on my toes.  I want to create and live in an environment of love and support, where I feel needed by my children and partner (boyfriend or husband, I’m not too picky about that part) but also where we are all appreciated for and encouraged to be the individuals we are.  I want to be the matriarch who maintains the balancing act of love, life and family so well her friends tell her she should start an advice column.  God, I need some advice- why do you keep turning around the direction of my dreams?  Let's make a deal.  You take away my desires for things that are not of this time for me, and I'll do my best to muddle my way through the "stuff".  Help me become what I'm becoming now so I can become what I am to become later.  Hopefully, that's a mommy.