In any other scenario, I'd kill to be Jennifer Connolly.

This photo is a metaphor for my life.

My ultimate goal has always been: be a Mom.  

When I was in first grade, when my teacher asked us to draw a picture of what we would be in the future, to make the world a better place, I drew a picture of me getting married (implication: make the world a better place by having kids and being a good Mom).  She said I did it wrong, made me cross it out, and instead draw a picture of recycling or being president or something like that on the other side.


When I was in elementary and middle school, I went to visit my aunt with the sole purpose of playing Mother's Helper and taking care of my baby cousins.


My first job was babysitting.  I did it for years, until my sister, D, had a baby and I could play the role of dutiful aunt and change diapers and play with my niece (and nephews, and more nieces from M in the years to come).


When I was in high school, we had to research and write a paper on our chosen career path.  I suffered complete writer's block, because I knew my English teacher was looking for more than "Stay At Home Mom".  I landed on "Kindergarten Teacher" because, well, it's the closest thing to SAHM I could think of.  My friend suggested "Actuary" because I was really good at Math, but I politely declined.  This fact would turn out to be poetic ... or perhaps ironic? ... about 10 years later when I sat for my first Actuarial exam.  And in my own defense, it was my last.


I went to college, because I genuinely wanted a degree and a career.  After all, I loved learning and French and Math, and English, too, in fact, and higher learning and a career was important to me.  It also sat at the back of my mind that I could always put this career on hold while I became a stay-at-home mom and return to it once the kids were in school.  And since I didn't have a high school sweetheart, I obviously needed to meet a college sweetheart.

I had a college sweetheart, but he turned out to be a Stage 4 Clinger.  Not really, but that's a fun phrase.  He was actually a codepedent, depressed intellectual who was so intellectual he dropped out of college.  Twice.  And apparently I have a soft spot for men who need fixing because I can't tell you how many times I called to wake him up for class or chapel or prayed for him to be the man I wished he was, until, five years later, I realized he wasn't.  That sounds terrible, and this is worse: I was looking for the father of my children.

I'm really making myself sound neurotic and crazy.  It's not like I obsessed over kids or purchased maternity clothes or "forgot" a pill every now and again.  Or even ever.  For crying out loud, I was 20 years old!  But the plan was always there, delicately lingering at the back of my mind: get married, be a good wife, have kids, be a good mom.  It was my Calling.

And life continued to happen, and I continued to meet men who were not the father of my children.  But I didn't let that stop me.  I made decisions in my life that I thought would prepare me for my ultimate, stable, predictable goal: I continued to advance in my career, and I bought a house.  As it turns out, the latter was the worst decision I ever made in my entire life.  I'm not kidding.  It was like a version of me trying to "live up to my potential," as Ms. Penelope Truck put it.  I am still recovering from that one, really, really, bad decision, and though the house sold a few months ago, the end is nowhere in sight.

Only now, at long last, later in life than I ever intended, now I've finally met the father of my children.  And reader, I married him.  (sigh. Jane did it so much less cheesy than I did)

But now I wonder.  As my career has taken front and center stage, and I am the breadwinner of the family, and I'm enjoying spending every available waking minute with the love of my life, dreaming of finally making it into the black and traveling around the world, but all the while the economy is tanking more than anyone ever thought it would, and like I said, my financial recovery is nowhere in sight ... 


I wonder if all along I've just been Jennifer Connolly.  Racing up and down crazy Escher-esque stairs, through beautiful stone archways, following that ever-elusive baby.  I'm going to finally fall through space and time, verbally duke it out with David Bowie, and return to accept the harsh reality of being a perma-babysitter.  I've extended the metaphor too far.  


The point is, while I've been scheming and dreaming, life has been happening and for better or worse, I'm childless.  Am I missing the point?