Horrors of Impending Motherhood

October 8, 2015:

I am writing after a hiatus.

It seems like a hiatus, although I made an entry in my diary the other week after months.

I haven’t worked in such a long time, my mind seems to have left its abode and gone on travels I can only dream of embarking on

It’s been eons since I have thrown myself into something and created something out of it. I can’t remember the last time that happened.

And all this free time and nothing to do has brought me back to the emptiness of my existence.

You see, I am planning on starting a family, on having a little babe of my own.

Which makes me think, in spite of all the ensuing happiness and triumph and pride I will feel when I do become a mother, it will really be the first thing I would have created in the span of my entire existence.

There would be nothing extraordinary that I would be able to tell my child about having accomplished.

It guts me, shames me, makes me feel so guilty of having wasted so much precious time.

I feel so unfulfilled, and it feels so unfair to think I would be burdening my little one with giving me the one thing I couldn’t give myself : fulfillment

You see, I have always despised people who had kids to fill the voids in their lives, always judged them as being inadequate to have kids, seeing as they hadn’t found, with all their efforts, the meaning that they are looking for in the little one. The little one who itself is so helpless and dependent upon coming into this world, let alone give us purpose and direction.

Maybe it’s symbiotic, the parent-offspring arrangement? Excuse the language, I don’t mean to think of it in such crude terms (the miracle of life is, after all, a magical and other worldly experience, or so I’ve heard) But maybe it is a mutual give and take? We take meaning and purpose , direction and energy, inspiration for new undertakings and the motivation to be better from and for our little ones, and give them protection, love and support in return?

Maybe.

But I’m not as good as I want to be before I welcome them here.

I don’t know who I am. A QA engineer? A writer? An artist? I don’t know.

To think that they would expect me to know , not only who I am , but also who they should be, is terrifying.

It paralyses me, petrifies me. I can feel my insides shrinking with nervous tension when I think the thought, just like a student who KNOWS she hasn’t covered the entire syllabus before sitting in an exam.

The possibility of failure is eminent. Clear as day. I can almost see it and most certainly feel it.

Even then, I don’t let the thought draw me away from the idea; the idea of having the responsibility and power to mould and shape and carve someone’s life for them. To have the opportunity, the sheer luck to give them their most permanent impressions. Sure it sounds daunting, it is. But I don’t think I have ever been more ready in my life for it.

Sure I might not know all the answers to the universe, but we can find them together. I’ll have a pristine mind to accompany me on the quest, a mind unaffected by cynicism and adulterated thoughts and twisted views. A mind I am hoping would side a little towards optimism; It would balance me out nicely.

I’m thinking selfishly even in this endeavor, in motherhood, the one thing that is supposed to be centered around the helpless little soul, I manage to make about what I’ll gain from it. This is what makes me think maybe I am inadequate in the first place. I’m looking for fulfillment already, for a soul mate that I am missing, for a friend here in the middle of nowhere, for a companion. There is so much of a burden of expectation that I am already placing on someone who hasn’t even existed yet. How can I be trusted to put their needs first and above mine? It baffles me, and makes glaringly obvious the chances that I have not yet taken, and travels I have not gone on, and the risks that I bypassed for a safer life. All things that could’ve counted for something, I have not done. And all of that baggage is landing on tiny, fragile shoulders that MIGHT some day exist.

The idea that I don’t know who I am, and the idea that there would be even lesser time to find out after, is harrowing.

Its eating me alive.

 Maybe I am uninspired, or maybe I’ve forgotten what it felt like after a good day at work, where my mind was occupied and busy all day, and there was a sense of achievement at the end.

The problem is, I don’t know which one it is. And I’m  very, very afraid that it  the latter.

You see, when I think of actually putting in the effort of excelling in what I do, I don’t want to do that either.

I have been horrific to myself by giving up my words.I loathe myself for every time I gulped down the urge to write and let it all out, even when it was brimming so close to the surface. I swallowed it, and it went down with the burn of bile that rises in your mouth and isn’t vomited out. I don’t know why I did that.

I vow to never do it again.

No matter how feeble, lazy and ordinary my words seem , I will not stop writing them.

They are the one thing that have come so naturally to me all my life.

I will bring my mind to create. In all adversity, in all circumstances.

My excuses are over.

If not for me, then for my future child.

I’d better be able to tell them I’m trying to be a brilliant writer, than an ordinary quality assurance engineer.