I don't know where I draw the line between my sister inserting herself as middler (not quite a meddler, but nearly) and performing the critical task of being the parental newsfeed. I expect that only my perspective, not her actions, changes the function.
CLH recently told me that our mother's continuing resentment of RDC stems from her belief that RDC denies me children. I have told the mater that I made my own decision, and that I'm glad I met a man who agreed with me; but since that statement doesn't mesh with her own feeling, she cannot accept, let alone countenance, it.
RDC and I have been together for almost 13 years and I have not yet begun to tick, nor ever quavered, for which I'm grateful. But then, about this I didn't expect to quaver: although I second-guess many decisions and avoid making several more, this issue is one I'm certain about. I do dread ticking, which I anticipate might happen in my 40s. Anecdotally, I've heard that women question their decision most during the hormonal rush into menopause, and that the women who've ridden that crest through are relieved not to have succumbed. So I'll batten the hatches in a few years, and I have informed RDC that he must hold my hand. Meanwhile, if I see an adult walking with a stroller and a leash and am ever more interested in what I see in the stroller than at the end of the leash, I might be in trouble.
If I had stayed with NCS and married him, I might have three kids but also a miserable marriage or a divorce by now. I don't recall whether SSP and I discussed children, but we were only 20ish when we dated and who thinks about children that young? When I was with PLT, I had decided on one child, but PLT said he didn't want a singleton. I agree with what CLH and reportedly BJWL believe, that if I had married someone else I might have decided another way--hopefully before having married him. But, as I told Kal the other day venting all of this, I married RDC, and I am glad to have found someone who shared my lack of biological imperative, and instead of having kids and probably stress and a stagnant partnership, I..."have this great life," Kal finished.
And I do. I have a husband and other family and friends and neighbors and coworkers and community; I have a house and a garden; I have books and walks and music and my bike and access to a pool; I am healthy and not decrepit; I have Blake; I have, besides my own reflexive self-flagellation, a fine life. I don't have a dog, and that might be RDC's fault because he's the one who first wanted a bird, and I don't have a lake, which also might be RDC's fault because he's why I moved to Denver.
But the fact that I don't have a child is not RDC's fault, and I am beyond sick of my mother assuming she knows better.
So the question is, do I tell my mother again for her to ignore me again so I beat myself up again for having failed to get through to her again, for failing to stop futilely wishing, again, for a mother I simply don't have? Or do I just simmer and resent and ensure that the Happy Couple's visit in three months is absolutely dire? Does she know that a primary reason I decided against reproducing is that I wanted to protect a child from generational repetition? That's not something I need to tell her, partly because it might hurt her feelings and partly because she would take it to mean that, for whatever the reason, I am depriving myself.
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In other news, I am so glad that Lady Chatterley's lover's last name is Mellors. At first I thought it was his given name, and wondered what was in the water when D.H. Lawrence and Elizabeth von Arnim were writing. The name Mellersh occurs as a given name only in Enchanted April and no where else that Google can find.
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In yet other news, the new snack sensation is an apple and some M&Ms. Perhaps I could try to shove M&Ms into the fruit's flesh, as one does with cloves and a ham. Probably I will just continue to take a bite of apple with a few M&Ms.