Her name is Dreama. Yes, Dreama. And she and her husband have been married for over twenty years. They moved here for his job which is in the oil industry (anyone coming here is coming for the oil). She seems very nice. She mentioned they have two grown kids in college and she asked if we have kids. An understandable question, we get it all the time. When I told her no..that it was just me and my husband and all of our animals..she smiled and said, 'Well, having kids is not all that its cracked up to be..if you are sad about it. But you don't look like you are very sad about it'.
I told her every day I get a little less sad about it.
Somewhere along the line I've crossed over from being child-LESS to being child-FREE. That doesn't mean I'm anti-baby. I'd be thrilled if I woke up tomorrow to find out that we were expecting {thrilled and terrified}. But I've turned the corner from viewing our current zero dependent status as such an awful, terrible, negative, depressing failure. Instead I recognize the blessings and advantages of being childfree. I am eagerly awaiting for God to show me where he wants me be, where he knows I will thrive. I have a feeling its coming very soon.
I am anxiously hoping to get to that point. Can I just say that I love your neighbor's honesty? Not many people would speak that candidly about being a parent. I like her!
ReplyDeleteI have two young boys. I didn't really want to have kids...I don't think...but then it just happened and my husband and I rolled with it.
ReplyDeleteI can tell you this...I went into your "About Me" section and took something from it to show you what life is like "with kids":
I love margaritas (you'll need a lot of them to deal with kid nonsense, the drama they'll create between you and your partner, and the stuff that even your kids have to deal with when they're away from you at school), chocolate ice cream (in a house with kids chocolate ice cream stains everything and getting to the gym to burn it off...yea...no...doesn't happen as often as it needs to), romance novels (there is little-to-no reading with children around, trust me!), sleeping in (kiss that goodbye forever when you have kids. Yes. Forever.), sparklies (they're cool until you find them all over your house or your kid gets them in his eye), finding a good deal (it gets A LOT tougher to find a good deal with little ones running around and you'll need a lot of "good deals" to afford all the super high expenses that kids accrue that you never even knew could possibly become an issue - think book sales, school photos, boo-boo meds and bandaids, socks and underwear that are constantly destroyed or stained or missing, etc.), girl time (many of your friends will disappear once mommyhood happens because it's the most time consuming thing ever...ugh), coffee (I love coffee too, but I'll be damned if I've enjoyed a cup of coffee with my kids around interrupting the act of sipping on it each and every morning), laughing until I cry (motherhood brings too many of these moments to count...both the positive times and the somewhat crazy times).
I speak very candidly about mommyhood because I think it's something that no one really "gets" until it happens to them. I also believe a lot of people make it out to be more amazing than it really is (I sound like a horrible person, but that's not what I'm going for here!). While, yes, it has its fantastically magical moments, it is FAR from glamorous. I love my kids to pieces, but there are some days that I wish I could just ship 'em off so I could pee in peace or not have to have quickie-sex on a regular basis for fear that they'll burst through the door because their favorite stuffed animal fell out of their bed and they can't find it (or because they just puked all over their bed - countless times has that happened to me!).
Just enjoy what you've got now and truly savor the joys of what you've got and who you are. It's the best advice I can give anyone who walks along the edge of the fence that separates a child-free lifestyle and a child-filled lifestyle. You're doing great where you are. Enjoy every second! And have a peaceful and enjoyable cup of coffee tomorrow morning for me, will ya?