To be more specific, I am questioning my whole plan for the future, at least the most immediate part of it. I just came from several days with a friend who gives me a tiny glimpse into what having a sister might be. I then spent several more days at an extravagant event with my mom that existed specifically to cater to my artsy hobby. During this time, of course, I've been separated from my family. So all these things conspire against me, in their own way, to make me question a few things that I've previously spouted off about in a loud, obnoxious manner.
If I'm being honest, I will tell you that this event was a scrapbooking weekend. Okay, so that's done. I will briefly defend the whole scrapbooking issue by saying that this weekend included classes about photography and editing software; an address by an award-winning journalist with a story that will haunt my heart for a long time; and opportunities to use paper and fabric and ribbon and paint and glue and my hands. This is no joke, this brand of scrapbooking. These people are very, very talented mixed media artists, so back off me.
The relevant deal with these particular scrapbooking chicks is that their leaders are largely blonde, gorgeous, successful women who appear to be about 32 years old. However, they all have somewhere between 4 and 9 kids, and one or two grandchildren. One of them joked that they get married at 12 - it's part of the religion. Based on the condition of their skin, I'm tempted to believe them, because it's the only math that allows me to believe they are mothers of mothers. All weekend long I'm looking at pictures of these large families and rows of beautiful children, born to women who also manage to have their own seriously successful companies, product lines, design houses, and teaching careers.
While at the event, I overhear one of my friends say, "I believe it's important to have lineage that is both horizontal and vertical." She was explaining why she needed to have more than one child. She has two boys - grown now - who love each other and will be there for each other as the family ages. During the passing of the years, these young men may reinvent themselves to the world, but not to one another. Your siblings remember who you were before you were smart enough to try to be someone else.
But this concern, this idea, isn't new to me. I've been here, examined it, and put it aside many times. This time, the crack in my one-child policy comes during a week away from that only child, our longest separation since her birth. I am weakened by her absence; missing the feel of her skin and the sound of her tiny voice, the things that normally keep me grounded in the present. Someday she will be gone from my side, and in fact, she is already beginning this process at age two. It's lonely, it's scary, the idea of it. An easy fix is to have another baby.
I follow this train of thought, flying down the track at break neck speed, causing a series of inevitable ideas that if pursued would change my whole life. No sense in starting graduate school this week! Why take on the loans, the expense? No, I'll just stay home and have these imaginary babies and make tons of nifty craft projects to sell on Etsy. Yes, that's what I'll do! I just spent a weekend getting so charged with inspiration that the very idea of doing anything other than opening my own studio seems like a complete waste of my incredible and obvious talent.
I actually get excited for a minute. How am I going to tell my husband about this change of plan? Sure, he'll be pissed. But seriously, he should be so grateful that I figured this out two days before grad school starts. We can probably get most of our money back! During this little epiphany, which actually started a day earlier and was now way out of control, I was interrupted by a row of three little girls, sisters, seated behind me on the plane. The smallest spent the bulk of the three hour flight kicking the hell out of my seat. She broke up the routine at the end to loudly fight with her sisters. And so the spell was broken.
I remembered where I was - hurtling towards home. Closer every minute to my own reality, and further from the alternate one presented so attractively in Arizona. My husband, a saint who had taken over for an entire week so I could take a break and prepare for this next adventure, was waiting for me. My daughter, the real one, the one that is here now, is sleeping in her little bed and I will walk in and wake her up and snuggle her. Our life is good; no, great; and it's the one we chose. I can't live someone else's life, even if it looks really cool, especially when you add a glittery scrapbook border to the family portrait.
I decided, just now, to stop obsessing about the composition of our family. I think about my friend, Nicole, with whom I spent three too-short days this week. She is my sister. She saw me reinvent myself once, and she remembers who I was, and will certainly remind me of it, should I need reminding. Together again, we fell into an old, easy rhythm. No amount of time passes that is too much for us to overcome in about three minutes.
I think about my brother's girlfriend. She has a little boy - a two year old boy that has captured our hearts with so much force that it actually brings tears to my eyes to think of them ever leaving us. Slowly, and also somehow suddenly, I have come to think of him as my nephew. I think about my husband's family, his wonderful, wonderful family that I am incredibly blessed to have added to my own.
I realize what this whole freak out is about. It's about me being scared of the future, of this big commitment we've made. Two years in a rigorous graduate program will mean a rigid schedule, a tight budget, and sacrifices on the part of my family. It means choosing one path over another, taking a leap, gambling. And I'm going to have a hard time appreciating the sights on this road if I'm wasting time worrying about the view I might have from somewhere else. So maybe I didn't figure out the meaning of life on this plane trip, and maybe I wrote a really long and embarrassingly emotional blog while I was at it. But I do know that I can't wait to get home to my perfect life, and leave everyone else behind to worry about their own.
editor's note: Snarky, bitchy commentary to return next week. Several days back at school should likely give Penny something to complain about.
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