Nurturing the Next Crop

When I was six years old, I had dreams of being Laura Ingalls Wilder. When I was 16, I had begun a path to take holy orders. When I was 20, I had a wide-open future, some college under my belt...and then, I had a pregnancy. I was not going to get an abortion--I could never, ever do that. So I got married, instead.

By the time I was 26, I had two kids, no college degree, a failed marriage, no career, I had lived through a recession, lost my house, and we existed in poverty. I had grown up ensconced in the glory of the American dream, knowing I would finish college and have a lucrative career, then find a loving, supportive husband. We would have a house in the suburbs with a yard and raise 2.5 children, and our kids would follow the same path we had taken; we'd then have grandchildren, and retirement, and frequent bottles of wine and occasional vacations to Europe. My future was solid, and comfortable, and real, and immovable.

When I was finally able to drop those chains and the blinders and experience the world, I found that it was glorious and huge and oh so hard...and I found myself. I found myself and I LOVED myself.

I found that little girl again who wanted to be Laura Ingalls Wilder and I nurtured her as I raised my children alone. I found a community and I found love again with a man I didn't think could possibly exist in the world as a real person, and I found two bonus kids and a new family, and I found my feet, finally. And then I found I was pregnant. I could imagine another child oh-so-easily. The idea of having and raising a child with this man, expanding our family, it was a siren's call, a seduction. I was devastated.

We could not add another child to our family--we couldn't afford it. We would get kicked out of our housing. And to start over? Our kids were teenagers. He told me he was there for the result of any decision I felt I may have had to make (or not).

I held and nurtured and reassured and apologized to a possibility that would never be fulfilled, and I made the toughest decision of my life.

It tore me apart. And then it happened again. Twins this time; I was casually informed that happens often the older women get. Something about multiple eggs dropping? Apparently he and I, we're a fertile duo. A decision that I had finally begun processing the emotional aftermath of had to be made again. It still baffles me, sometimes, to think that we could currently have seven children.

What would that look like, how would that feel? Where would I be? I don't think I would be here.

I finally have my career, I'm Laura Ingalls Wilder now. We have a farm. I feed people, I feed my children who have begun to leave the nest, so I feed them here or whenever they happen to pop back in. I feed their friends, and our community. It's amazing how feeding people and fostering safe space for them can be so healing. I'm not there yet, and I don't think I'll ever quite be whole again. Every August, and every November when those due dates roll around I think about babies, then toddlers, and now schoolchildren. I cast my gaze to the future and see them growing, then leaving, then coming home. Three of my children will always always be home. I will watch the other four, though, and it won't have to be through the lens of an active imagination. The terror of raising kids is knowing that the safety you provide them is a mirage.

The world just got a lot more terrifying. I'm not out of the woods yet, but I am in the fields nurturing the next crop. We'll take it one row at a time.