is a single mama in the city, super-savvy editor, writer, video host and shameless shoe whore.
Time keeps on ticking, ticking
Tuesday, August 28, 2007 
Over the weekend, I had dinner with my friend Molls. Molls, who has been around since the all ages clubbing days, who wore the uniform with me -- black and white Units made into skirts and belts, black tights and granny boots, slicked back hair and red, red lipstick -- while dancing on platforms to house music, who flashed gold cards to get in the door to Medusa's and Limelight and those other clubs and then congregated in the parking lot to talk to boys and play cool like only 16-year olds can.
Molls, who I first shared wine coolers with on the back deck of a party where our other friends were tucked away, smoking pot and snorting coke and getting laid. Molls, who was my roommate in Wrigleyville after college and who I shared many secrets, lipsticks, bills, beers and outfits with in our little attic apartment.
Molls, who was my partner in crime in hosting the best party our friends have ever gone to, a Bastille Day bash that required attendees to bring something red, white, blue or French, and which ended with all fifty of us on the street with buckets of Red Stripe during one of Chicago's biggest power outages in over 100-degree weather. Molls, who laughed with me as our food went bad in the fridge and our neighbors passed out on the porch while the streets were pitch black and Wrigley Field's lights blazed brightly like the moon in the middle of our neighborhood that night.
Molls, who was one of two friends from Chicago to visit me after I packed up and moved to Oregon for four years. Molls, who stood up beside me in my wedding and who knows me inside and out.
Even now, even though our lives are linked but different. Similar but not at all the same.
We had a three-hour dinner and the conversation eased into talk about marriage and babies and all the good and challenging emotions that brings up for both of us. Molls would like to be married, wants to have children. And the conversation and plans have begun with her beloved. It seems to me that soon she will have a wedding and hopefully soon after, babies.
We are 35 and so some of my friends are feeling like the timeline is pressing down. And I think Molls is one of those friends.
She told me she doesn't want it to be too late and I closed my eyes for the briefest of seconds.
I tried my best to get out my concerns, my worries, my sadness that she felt like she needed to run to take her place on the timeline. I explained that fertility is so out of control, that of course she is worrying but that she will very likely be fine, that I do believe that stress and psychology do impact bodies, even if not entirely or not primarily being responsible for how or when or if we are able to make a baby.
But it all just came out and my intention was slurred and sloppy. And if that wasn't enough to distance myself from my friend, I said something that must have sounded bristly and not at all as compassionate as I wanted it to be.
I said, "I get the worry. I sometimes worry that we will never be able to have another child and that scares me so much."
I was trying to connect. I was trying to say that she is not alone in her concerns about her body's responses to the sequence of events that have led her to being ready now. I was trying to say that fertility is fragile, no matter how many children you have or want, no matter what age you are or hope to be when you are ready or ready again.
Molls stopped me there.
"Jessica, one child is a lot more than none."
The words hung defiantly in the space between us.
I nodded. She was right.
The conversation rolled on and I understood more of what she was
saying, why she was worried about being too late. But my own words
didn't leave me, and on my way home alone in the car, they came back to
me over and over.
I wanted to call her and explain that I was trying to connect just as I tried to connect while she was Match.coming and He's Just Not That Into Youing
and I was dealing with in-law issues and wills and shared bank
accounts. And why I was cried out of fury and isolation when I was
pregnant and in the early days of motherhood and my friends were
dealing with dating and dry-cleaning, frivolously reading books and
going to matinees and getting manicures on a whim. And why I scoffed a
little too loudly when one of my grrrlfriends gave a table of us advice
about how exercise prepares the body for childbirth, her only personal
experience being a compulsive exerciser friend of hers who recently had
a child.
It is like thinking you speak French and then going to France and realizing you only know a few good words,
I said back then, breasts nearly bursting and my heart aching to be
away for even a few hours for a much-needed lunch with the grrrls.
My need to connect this weekend was as strong as my need to explain to
Molls why I was releasing my hold on some of the friendships within our
group because of the pain of no longer being invited out once I was
married and even more once I was a mother.
My need to connect was because I wanted and still want very much to share these experiences with my closest and oldest friends.
Along the way, out of necessity and divine intervention, I've met other
women who are mothers and who have become very close friends. Our
spontaneous playdates and just-mamas dinners out have taken priority
over plans with my old friends. It just happened. But still, there is
this longing for a few select women who I have shared so much of my
life with to understand where I am now and for me to get where they are.
And that is why I said what I said. And Molls, in the raw honesty that
she doesn't often reveal, made it clear that I don't know, that I don't
get it, that we aren't in the same place.
And I guess I can be OK with that. Because what Molls doesn't know is
that there are a lot of issues and fears and worries about the timeline
after having a child. I've been playing them in my mind a lot lately.
And then, quite quickly, all of this concern about connecting with
Molls quickly departed from her life and the family she so wants to
make to my life and the family I have.
I thought about how much I adore my husband and little boy, about how
they fill me with laughter and great joy and tenderness and challenges,
about how they make me feel the most me of any people I've ever met.
As I turned on to Irving Park, through the darkness peppered with streetlights and headlights, the questions came to mind, "But is it enough? Is your family complete?"
The answer is no. I knew it, felt it deep down like I did when I
knew I needed to marry Bruce. Could I feel happy and fulfilled if I had
one child? Probably, but I am overwhelmed at how much I feel that there
is space for another person.
There should be another child in this family. I want that very much. And perhaps, sooner than I anticipated.
Reader Comments (1)
The clock is ticking, but you have much more time than you think. Honest. Take care - and think of something else to talk about with her!