Her Single Blessedness

It may be weird to talk about this now but I’ll go ahead and get this out of my system.

A few months ago, I had an epiphany which may well be my only chance to get myself my own family. I mean, hey, I’m 27! Having a family of my own, although not something I’d entertain everyday, is a truth that lurks around especially with society and science reminding me that, as a woman, there’s that biological clock which I have to beat if I were up for it.

I think it was a few weeks after my birthday when I finally realized that, yes, I do want to have my own kid someday. I’m up for it! I’m just not so clear on how I’d go about it. Well I know how, roughly maybe, but that’s not what I meant by how.

In my crudely mapped master plan, I am going to have that wonderful kid to whom I hope to be ready to pour in all the love I can come up with given my lifetime. Never mind, if the kid won’t take care of me when I grow old and wrinkled. I’ve come to a stage in my humanity when I know for a fact that being a parent is not about investing on a living, breathing “insurance plan” to which one can endorse oneself upon hitting 60. You become a parent, do your darn best at it, and never ever expect anything in return.

What you get while continuing to become a parent despite minor attacks of senility, the love and care your kid/s shower you with, those are rewards, unexpected rewards. You become grateful but never cease being a parent because unlike other jobs, being somebody’s mom or dad doesn’t allow day-offs, resignations nor retirements. And there are no monetary compensations either.

I do have an idea what I’d be “giving up” if ever I’d choose to implement my so-called plan. Perhaps I’d only go on with it when I’m sure I have achieved the state of mind wherein I won’t see it as giving up anything. On the contrary, it will be more of changing priorities and taking the focus away from me in search of a more meaningful existence.

I know, I know. It’s pretty much idealistic. And I am well aware, too, that it is as much difficult as it is idealistic, if not more.

However, I have to worry about that later. The more pressing issue now is the missing factor in my master plan. I haven’t squeezed in a husband on my future family picture. Hence the conflict.

Most women, they spend a big chunk of their lives looking for the man made especially for them, the other piece that would make them whole, the other piece that would fit perfectly in their hearts.

Oh, how I wish I can be like them just so I can be spared from a murky happy-ever-after.

But I guess I wasn’t built to look or wait for my supposed prince. I’ve said it many times, how convenient it would have been if I were a lesbian. If that were the case, it would be easier to explain why I have never been romantically associated with a man.

I admire men and, at best, like them, too. I can appreciate them in ways I’d rather not appreciate a fellow woman. But hooking up with anyone of their kind is bleak where I am concern, especially since I’m not one who’s into the dating game.

I just can’t muster the effort it takes to put my best stiletto-decorated foot forward just to catch a guy’s attention. And I admit, I’m not best at trying to actively impress someone whom I may, despite me denying, be attracted to. Plus, I don’t really dance to the tune of flirting. If there’s anything, the whole courting ritual or lack thereof makes me laugh.

But, please don’t get me wrong. I am not entirely a moron at relating to men. I do talk to them and I do in fact have male friends. The straight ones certainly outnumber the gay ones. But that’s about it. Male friends.

So there. Having a husband, let alone a boyfriend really is impossible for someone like me. And it sucks because I know I will be forever scrutinized for such inability. Not that I care so much what others may say. I am just bothered why it can’t be as easy for me as it is for most people.

I don’t think I am incapable of liking another person, a man to be exact. I just lack the ingredient that would allow me to want to like someone. Add to that my feelings towards the conventional way of becoming part of a couple because, as I have been saying, the path which may bring me from merely liking someone to getting involved with that person—I find hilariously unnatural.

Maybe, I am an enlightened one where being a parent is concerned. I can almost convince myself I’d be a good mom someday. But I can hardly picture myself as somebody’s wife. And never becoming a wife sort of gets in the way of my chance to become a perfect mom.

Of course I can always adopt or be a single parent to my own biological child. But in either case, I will be just thinking about me. It most definitely is not the parent I would want to become. I would hate to deprive my child with a dad because I cannot be normal enough to need a man. Because I have too much pride to admit I need a man.

Needless to say, my refusal to co-exist with a man, as maybe nature and God would have it, disqualifies me from being the perfect parent I wish to become. I don’t seem to put in much effort in trying. Unlike single parents who most likely didn’t realize they’d end up rearing their kid/s alone. They get loads of points for wanting and needing their relationship to work. Sit me beside them and I’d shrink.

I don’t know when I’d get another epiphany, one that involves me needing a husband, only until then will my master plan be deemed unflawed.