Monday, August 13, 2007

The downside of being ahead of the curve:

Some magical things have happened since I married, and more recently, became pregnant. The support from people in my life has been mostly overwhelming, but it's also been illuminating: it comes from (for the most part) those older than me, who have been down this road before.

As for my peers? I have more than one friend who stopped talking to me after the pregnancy email went out. They just literally never responded, and I hear through the grapevine that they take the baby in my belly as some sort of criticism on their own life.

"Think about where they are coming from," my mother counseled, and I said "Why? Why do I have to? It's like the lady at McDonald's telling me that she doesn't like my t-shirt; it has nothing to do with her." And so being married and expecting a baby has nothing to do with my friends, both close and not-so-close. I promise each and every one of them that in the moments where making a baby was a possability, I had none of them on my mind.

I'm pretty fond of Bridget Jones and her Smug Marrieds, but in my world, taking a traditional route has caused me to be a social pariah. Now that I'm not the Only.Married.One, having a husband has become a little more acceptable, but the having a baby? No one else is there yet. And somehow the fact that I am makes some of my oldest friends draw away.

I'm still me, just as I was when I fell in love with K., just as I will be after the baby is born. I might not be sleeping in and as obsessive about my kitchen floor, but I can guarantee I'll still like quirky British movies, suck at Scrabble, and be incapable of not consuming any chocolate in the house. So the fact that some of my peers take a choice that is wholely mine personally makes me very sad, and more than a bit resentful.

2 comments:

D'nelle said...

How.Depressing.and.Confusing.

I am confounded and surprised, because my reactions to your life choices have always included some mixture of respect, delight, inspiration, affirmation of the rightness of the universe, and a general feeling of wellbeing that I am living in the same space-time continuum as you and K.

You give me faith that good things do happen.

Not that my opinions matter a whit - any more than me thinking that it's sad that Brad left Jennifer - but when comparing them to what you're talking about, I'm completely befuddled. It's like seeing a pregnant woman smoking a cigarette - I can't even begin to understand the thought process that led that woman to make the decisions that brought her to the conclusion that smoking - and while pregnant! - was an acceptable form of behavior.

How do these people arrive at that conclusion? Given the stated premises, how can they not reach the same conclusions I have? How could you being happy make them feel bad about their lives?!

I am surely saddened to hear that some people in your life have taken offense at the "traditional" route (frankly, I wouldn't categorize you or you&K as traditional, because you're too smart, too grounded and too actualized).

I am also surely glad to hear that your friends were not on your mind when you were making babies... I'm sure K is, too.

My grapevine, on the other hand, while still vicious and annoying, right now is providing me with nothing but delight. It's a meta-delight, a sort of post-modern feeling about the grapevine and not its contents, but it is delight.

I guess people are the same everywhere. Which is why i'm holding tight to you (and K and the puppies and now the baby), because when one finds good people, when one finds an exception to the rule, one should make sure not to let them go.

I am very excited about the weekend, btw. And, I'm not bringing puppies. long useless story. But I AM bringing fun, infuriating stories about corporate America! hold on to your unbuttoned jeans, baby, because I am going to BORE you to DEATH!

BALTHAZAR said...

Awww no! I'm sure your friends still love you, they're just worried they don't have anything in common with you anymore so they don't know what to say. Of course you'll still be you after you're a Mama... just a more tired, cranky you. :)

Exhausted, but ecstatic, that's whatI hear. I am sadly not going to be a baby Mama yet, but I am getting new day-old-chicks in next week, which I am very excited about. (Um, there were some murders in the henhouse last week but it's since been fortified.) So, what fruit size is the babe at now?

*kiss!*
-Caitlin!