Those damn kids (Or another reflection from the day-job desk)
Eeks, only 17 minutes this time! But no worries. I think I know what I want to talk about: kids!
No apologies this time (because there’s no time!).
I met my cousin’s baby this weekend (is that how you say it? Met his baby? Saw their baby? Enjoyed a formal introduction to her?). She is just as lovely as in pictures. So teeny. Babyish. Adorable.
And now, her mom’s whole day, whole life, at least for the next year, is comprised of day after day of waking up and taking care of her. My cousin will continue to work, bringing home the proverbial bacon, and she is off work for one whole year (and, I presume, indefinitely after that, because there will probably be another baby in the works by then).
This is where my baby train pauses; it doesn’t go off the rails, but the conductor takes a long lunch break.
Am I ready to devote myself, even for months at a time, to ministering to a child’s every needs, at the expense of my own?
Am I ready to be exhausted by his/her/its inescapable needs? By the needs of others around me who demand their time with him/her/it? By my own need to be a good caregiver?
Am I ready for a forever commitment—a commitment to a life, lifestyle, that is, probably more than I can even imagine, different from my own; one knotted by dependency; tight with responsibility?
After, beyond, and beside all of the joy and heart-filling love and miraculous beauty there is also the constant, constant, constant cycle of care, which in its most basic formulation is not much more than a heady combination of shit, piss, puke, wails, sickness, stink, rage, and depression. And debt. And no going back. And you/it/him/her—no more me as I know it (or I as I know it, if that is more clear).
Am I ready? Ready to no longer think that thought, but instead see it replaced by is she/him/it okay/happy/full/still breathing?
Does merely asking “am I ready,” even if only in the backrooms of my brain (or the front pages of this blog), mean I very nearly am?
And is my life any more/less/otherwise not already full of shit, piss, puke, wails, sickness, stink, rage, and depression (I did rent a keg this past weekend, after all)? Maybe it’s time to start taking care of someone else’s instead of my own.
