Children.

I spent the day at the beach with my friend, Britteny (you can read her blog here) and her family, which consisted of her mom, sister, 2 nieces and her nephew. The girls are 4 and 6 I believe, and Lucas is 13 months. I would normally say that, "I hate children" or "Eww children", but I have to say that spending the day with them remind me both how annoying children are...and cute and I want my own. Uhh that one statement that makes my stomach flip. I want my own. Not adopted, my own. I've never had a job babysitting and all my younger cousins are either 2-6 years behind me or when they were a baby I was just starting 6th grade...maybe. So my exposure to children is limited...so imagine my surprise when I'm suddenly watching the girls boogie boarding and I'm worried that the water is going take them under. What? Later the girls are climbing around on the rocks at the beach and I'm think, "Gah if she's not careful she's gonna fall and hurt herself." Excuse me? Where did this motherly instinct come from? Why, when in high school I couldn't stand to be left alone in a room with a small child, am I wanting to hold Lucas? Why on God's green earth am I worrying every two seconds where the kids are and who is around them? They're not even mine! I guess I can no longer deny what I feel...about children...and the longing I have for a little one of my own. Of course I'm talking about when I'm at a point in both my career and life in which I can comfortably support a child.

I doubt I will ever tell my mother this until I meet a man who will commit to me in the sense that he wants to raise a family, my feelings on the subject of marriage are still iffy.

So while trying to get my tan on, since I'm so pale, I spent the day worrying. Not worrying over if my partner, whom I still can't decide to put ex, old, or nothing in front of, is gonna text me or what he's doing with the new girl...or if I've lost him to her already...Instead I'm worrying about children. Of course my mind then drifts to the subject of me actually being able to have one. I don't know if it's because I have so much time on my hands to think about my future or the fact that it is indeed in the front of my mind, but I am indeed worried that I won't be able to have children. And that thought terrifies me more than failing at my career or disappointing my parents. What if due to the HPV, I can't carry a child? As a woman, I lose an identifier. As a human, I feel like a failure. Nature, which I believe so strongly in, chooses to take that right away from me...nature which is so stable, steps aside to let chance take a turn at the game. Sometime over the last year with my partner, I found self worth in the realm of relationships, sex, and love...before then I had nothing. I use to doubt so strongly how anyone could find me attractive, until him. And even now at times I still doubt... so someone tell me how, if in the next 3 years it's discovered that the HPV has changed the cells in my uterus that I have to have treatment, and that said treatment leaves me scarred, am I supposed to have self worth with myself as a woman? I want a child, yet due to things beyond my control and one roll around in the sheets, I cannot have one? I can't describe the uneasy that creates inside me. So given my newly discovered strong motherly instincts, it's not surprising that the subject is on my mind. And thenthe thought, "what man could love me then?" follows closely behind.

Sometimes I truly hate thinking about things so much.

Gertrude.

The thought came to me that if time travel was indeed possible, I know the point in time in which I'd like to change. It isn't a point in my past that I want to change, I feel like I'm way too young to decide if there is a moment worth changing. The moment is actually from my father's past. 1973 to be exact. I don't really know the specific month and day, but the day in which my grandmother died. I know it must seem strange for me to pick this moment. Let me explain...

My grandmother, Gertrude, was killed in Hyannis, MA in a motor vehicle accident in 1973. My grandfather and her were riding with his motorcycle club when a car cut off my grandfather. In an attempt to avoid hitting the car, my grandfather swerved hard causing my grandmother to hit the hood of the car. I was told she wasn't wearing a helmet at the time, which why she recieved severe head tramua when she hit the car. She was only 34. (And this was why I use to get so worried when Nick would ride his bike.)

She left behind five children. My father, the oldest, was only 16 at the time. From stories that have been told to me over the years, it seemed after my grandmother died my grandfather got stricter and meaner. He was no kind soul to start with, but after she was gone he wasn't any better. I've always wished that I could have met her and as a child, when I use to see a shadow figure in my closet that would scare me...I'd always tell myself that it was just my grandmother watching over me while I slept.

So if given the chance to change one moment, I'd make it so that they never went for that motorcycle ride. And prehaps things would have been different for my father and his siblings. Maybe the things that tore them apart when they got older wouldn't have happened and I wouldn't have grown up with a spilt family. Then again prehaps it would have also meant that my parents would have never met and I wouldn't exist. I don't know though, I feel pretty confindent that I was/am meant to exist and that if I could indeed change that moment, I'd have grown up with a biological grandmother, who would have loved me...and she'd tell me stories about what it was like to grow up in Germany during WWII,  stories about how my father was a crazy little boy, and stories about what I was like as a child spending weekends at her house.

Maybe I would have had that or maybe she was meant to die young...sadly. RIP Gertrude Beiersdoerfer.