Last day of the Isolation Journals 30-day project, and I'm starting to go back and clean up my entries. I won't be posting all of them, but this is from Day 1:
Dear Naoma,
I picked out your name long before I knew you would never be
born, long before I fully realized that the traditional role of wife and mother
was not for me. It was my grandmother’s name, and when she passed during my
sophomore year of high school, I thought it would be fitting to name my future
daughter after her. I knew it would mean
a lot to my mom to have the name carried on in the family, and I myself was
named after my other grandmother, who passed when my father was still a teenager. And so you came to exist in the only place
you ever will – my mind.
It’s odd, when I think about it now. Even as I secretly imagined explaining to a
future spouse that I had your name picked out or watching mom go flustered with
delight at my choice, I declared to all who asked that I wasn’t sure I ever
wanted to have a family. Over the years, “wasn’t sure” changed to “pretty sure”
and then to “mostly certain” as I saw how few women of my generation, as well
as those before me, were able to care for and raise children without utterly
losing themselves in the process.
Yet despite this growing recognition of my own fears and
desires, I still thought (and yes, even now sometimes think) of you as an if.
If I find someone who will be my partner in life and whom I trust to
co-parent with me. If I find the balance within myself to nurture both
my own individuality as well as that of another human being, without compromising
either one. And of course, if I happen to give birth to a girl. All
these if’s persisted in my mind, even as the chances of their fruition became
smaller and smaller with the passing of time.
And the truth that I struggle to admit even now is that, unless the
universe throws me some especially unexpected curveballs, my decisions have
rendered these if’s, and you, obsolete.
Because I have chosen, for better or worse, a partner whom I
love but with whom I will never bring you into the world. And I have decided
that trying to be my own person is a hard enough task without taking on
responsibility for another life, that the kind of balance I believe to be
necessary for a healthy family structure is not actually within my reach, and
that the effort required just to attempt it is too daunting even on my bravest
days. It’s better, isn’t it, not to involve you in my inevitable failure? I’d
rather not take us both down, if I can help it.
This may sound thoughtful, noble, considerate even. It’s
not. T.S. Eliot comes to mind, as he does so often: in short, I was afraid.
Afraid that I couldn’t attain even a modicum of the ideal, afraid that it would
cost you too much and even more afraid that it would cost me everything. And in
that fear, I chose that you would never come to be.
I feel somehow that I owe you an apology for this. Because
of me, you will never know a mother’s embrace or feel the warmth of the sun on
the back of your neck or dare to eat a peach (yes, Eliot again). And I will never get to see your face – are
your eyes light or dark? your nose straight or crooked? – or hear your voice
crying out for me in the middle of the night.
I’ll never tuck you in at night after reading a bedtime story or teach
you how to ride a bike. And I’ll never
show you old pictures of your aunt and uncle or tell you stories about what
life was like for us when we were your age. For this – and so much more – I am
sorry.
I must admit though, that sorry as I am, I can’t quite bring
myself to regret the decision I have made. I do sometimes wonder what might
have been had I chosen differently and had your if become a when.
I wonder, would I have liked being a mother? Would it have been as I difficult
as I thought? And would it have been worth it, after all (Eliot one more
time, of course)? But regret, no.
Ultimately, I felt a sacrifice was required one way or
another. Perhaps others see it
differently, but for me the choice was this: lose myself to raising you,
subordinate your well-being to my own pursuits, or choose not to bring you into
the world at all. Growing up as I did, both
witnessing the first and experiencing the second on a daily basis, I chose the
third option. I chose myself over
you.
At least this way only I will ever feel the consequences of the
sacrifice: I will never know the joys and hardships of motherhood, but you will
never know the feeling of coming second to my passions or the guilt of having
subsumed my life within your own. Because you will never feel anything at all.
It must seem strange, and the opposite of motherly, this
lack of remorse. Which is exactly the point, I think. There is no regret
because in choosing myself, I chose this current version of myself. This person
who is flawed in so many ways but who has learned to navigate these flaws
passably enough, learned to recognize her shadows and demons for what they are
and live mostly at peace both with them and with herself. This person who is
not a mother. Can I really fault her, can you really fault me, for making the
un-motherly choice?
Although, if blame must be assigned, I suppose it should be
to me. It is most certainly not your
fault. You did nothing wrong—you never had the chance to. And though you will
never know the name I chose for you, Naoma, I always will. Despite everything,
I still think it is a lovely name.
With love,
Your un-mother
