Molly - いい天気ですね。
A same-age friend of mine is considering whether or not she wants to have children. She is very responsible, well-rounded, and hardworking. She also travels a ton. I think the main roadblock to her imagining herself as a mother is that she makes the most of any opportunity to squeeze in a trip or plan a big vacation. "Career and travel are the two major factors for most people," she said over drinks. I have come up with my own stock response to this sort of conversation, which is that I think is a way to make the fear of not getting to be every possible version of yourself more articulate. When Paul and I went to Japan this past summer, seeing it through a parent's eyes was very special, but of course I will never know the version of us who went as childless people, or even unmarried people.
But it's not really trips I could have taken or achievements I could have made that get me into moods about my childless self. To be clear: I have never regretted becoming a mother. These are more いいてんきですね moments. Two major periods of my life dominate these reveries:
- My college anorexia relapse.
I would say I've had about four active periods of clinically bad anorexia in my life, but college was the most severe. I was seized by the idea that I could only hold one experience fully at a time. To really read, or study, or pursue something, I had to be hungry. I would sit in the coffee shop near my dorm and feel my brain buzzing as I wrote art history essays or just went on autodidactical digressions. I remember going to a lecture for extra credit in French one evening about Moliere. Afterwards I got into some conversation with the lecturer about revealing and obscuring truths and some syntactial line I had drawn between Moliere and George de la Tour. I honestly can't remember what I was even on about. The livewire hunger euphoria induced intellectual mania is inaccessible to me now.
Sometimes I'll see some younger, miserable, starving girl online and get not jealous per se, but wistful. It was a unique and unrepeatable time. Every anorexia relapse procedural. I do still struggle with these things, but I also take care of a baby and plan meals that I think the whole househould will enjoy. I am a 33-year-old adult with a less resilient body and more on the line than my 18-year-old self.
- Being miserable and in love (going to movies)
The beginning of my relationship with Paul was tumultuous. There was a brief few months in 2017 where it was not only dramatic but the question of whether we would actually be able to be together was still open. I was max sad and max horny. This is an incredibly powerful combination but it can't last very long. It's like playing Monster Hunter - I always used dual blades and you can charge up your "demon mode" during which you can release a barrage of fast and vicious attacks. The catch is that demon mode drains your stamina at an accelerated rate. Max sad/max horny works the same way. I would not recommend it, I guess, but I do feel like there is something essential to the human experience in surrenduring yourself to such Dionysian depths at least once.
I know in my heart that the emotionally reckless, high risk high reward gambler I was back then is firmly in the past. My son will, rightly, never really understand that part of me. And that's fine. I think something unique about love as a parent is that it's a relationship where you love and give without the expectation of being known - something vital to romantic relationships. But much more concrete aspect of all this is that I coped with my vertiginous existence in August-November 2017 by going to A TON OF MOVIES. Just, any movie that sounded even vaguely interesting. It is the single thing I'm most envious of about childless people. They can go to movies whenever they want! Few of them make use of this, but I do have a good friend who moved to Tokyo a few years ago and goes to movies like he's Molly in 2017 and I covet that aspect of his life.
I do not want to be currently experiencing either of these periods of my life. They were on the balance pretty bad. I guess I'm saying I honor my past and mourn for it.