Author: misschryss

Ejo #138 – My Green Babies (or Plants Are People Too): Part 2

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A few of you have asked me for my top tips for keeping plants healthy.  In my previous post, I mentioned being careful about over-watering (just don’t do it!), re-potting and moving plants around to give them a new lease on life.  The other thing I regularly do for all my plants (except for Eugene, coz fuck that guy) is to wipe their leaves clean from time to time.  Dust (or in our case, sand) accumulating on leaves actually prevents plants from being able to photosynthesise, which can then lead to all sorts of problems.  I like to get some kitchen towel and sit down next to my babies and chat to them as I gently wipe their beautiful leaves clean.  Sure, it can be a little time consuming, but it’s also a special time, a time to bond and to just be with each other. 

Speaking of plant love, shamed by the revelation of my blatant disregard for one of my own plant babies, I’ve spent the last month trying to get to know Sally. Just giving her a bit of my attention. I haven’t been the best mother to her, in the past. But I want to change. I’ve tried to change. It’s taken her a little while, but I think she’s starting to open up to me. She’s starting to come around.

Be still my beating heart. Sally’s new baby shoot.


CHESTER

Macramé is so daggy, but I actually really love it.

Chester is a Monstera adansonii, commonly known as a monkey mask Monstera.  I bought him in a supermarket, where, surprisingly, most of our healthiest plants were purchased.  Nearly all the plants that have perished under my guardianship were bought in nurseries, so I don’t really bother shopping at garden centres anymore.  Chester and I went through a bit of a difficult patch for a few months because, for some inexplicable reason, I kept calling him Charlie.  It didn’t quite feel right, but he didn’t correct me either, so I’d say we’re both a little bit to blame for that nonsense.  Yes, it was awkward for a while, but we’re back on speaking terms now. 


PETER

The strong, silent type.

Peter is a Ficus elastica, also known as a rubber plant.  These guys have always appealed to me because I remember having one in our flat when I was a small child.  Peter isn’t a fancy kind of plant, and he’s always been an easy baby.  I think he’s pretty content to stay in the background and let the other kids steal all the limelight.  However, he is currently growing some beautiful new dark green, shiny leaves, which simply delight me (so maybe he is a little bit of a showpony after all).  When his new leaves pop out of their sheaths and unfurl into existence, I like to give them a little kiss to welcome them into the world (yes, I am affectionate with my children; probably the same way that you are with yours, so… whatevs). 

The magic of nature.


BILL
Bill is a trendy Ficus lyrata, more commonly known as a fiddle leaf fig.  I swear to god, you can’t even open a design magazine these days without seeing one of these hipsters sprucing up an interior.  In fact, when my sisters and I were styling our family home to put on the market a couple of years ago, we went out and bought one of these guys to zhuzh up the house. 

Sexy beast.

I very distinctly remember the day that Bill was delivered to our apartment.  David and I had gone out with a friend that afternoon and… hmm, let’s just say we’d had a little bit to drink.  When Bill arrived, I popped him onto the dining room table to admire him, and as soon as I turned my back, perhaps threatened by all the attention I was lavishing onto the newcomer, David decided to establish dominance by taking a large bite out of one of Bill’s beautiful, crinkly leaves.  I was not impressed, and promptly slapped a restraining order on David, which stands to this day!  He has visitation rights, but only when I’m at home to supervise.  And Bill still bears the scar of the bite mark on his lower leaf.  Whenever he gets self conscious about it, I like to show him my own scars and tell him that it gives him character. Parenting 101.


IVY
Ivy is a golden pothos, just like my work-kid LuLu, who you met last time.  For a while she was marooned in a land-bound pot, while I conducted high level negotiation talks with David to please, please, please let me hang some macramé pots from the ceiling.  Eventually he relented and drilled some hooks into our ceiling from which to hang the kinds of plants that like to hang around.  Ivy absolutely fucking loves hanging around.  She has grown so unbelievably fast since we put her up there, and some of her tendrils are now almost three metres long.  I have grand plans to trail her branches all around the living room, which is actually possible because they can grow up to 12 metres long.  Jungle living, bitches!!! 

She really loves just hanging around.


LOU
Lou is an Asplenium nidus, also known as a bird’s nest fern because they grow out of a central, fuzzy rosette that looks like … you guessed it, a bird’s nest.  Lou prefers to be referred to by the pronouns they/them, and we fully support that.  They were a land-based plant for a little while, but after I convinced David to screw the holes in the ceiling, we hung them up and they’ve burgeoned ever since.  In this photo you can see a brand new baby frond unfurling.  Tell me it’s not breathtaking!!!

My baby’s having a baby!!


TOMMY’S

What? Are? You?

The Tommy’s are (ostensibly) tomato plants.  These weirdos are actually freaks of nature.  I planted some of my Mum’s heirloom tomato plant seeds in October of last year, and a few of them sprouted leaves.  But I must have fucked up the timing, because these guys haven’t grown at all since then.  But they’re not dead, either.  The three that have survived have literally been this size for the last nine months. It’s bizarre.  It’s like they’re in some kind of stasis, and I’m here for it. I’m trying to keep them alive long enough for them to make it through summer, and maybe then they’ll start growing again?  Who the fuck knows.  I’m just winging it here, people, flying by the seat of my pants.  This is completely new territory for me.  Also: maybe science?? 


AZIZ
Aziz is a Zamioculcas zamiifolia, also known as a ZZ plant.  These guys are super duper low maintenance, which is why you’ll frequently see them growing quite happily under the bright, artificial light of malls and office buildings.  And that’s exactly what I love about Aziz – he is quite comfy sitting in the darker areas of the house, where a lot of other plants would suffer from the lack of light.  I’d been on the lookout for a ZZ for a really long time, and when I saw this charmer in IKEA one afternoon I literally jumped for joy.  He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?  I think the other plants get jealous of him sometimes because he sits in a spot I walk past frequently, so I’m always giving him a high five or whispering, “Yo Aziz, whaddup!”   The other plants need to get over it. 

Yo, Aziz!!


SHANE

Shane’s the chickadee on the far right. This photo was taken nearly 10 years ago. They’re in the bathtub because David and I were going on holiday. We aren’t the best parents in the world, but I’ve never pretended otherwise.

Shane is a Peperomia obtusifolia, also known as a baby rubber plant.  She’s one of the OG flora we bought when we first moved to Dubai.  She’s been with us a long time, and I don’t think any of the other plants will be surprised to hear me say that she’s my favourite.  We’ve been through a lot together; a lot of years, man.  She’s moved house with us, twice.  And, I’m not embarrassed to say that she spent a short stint in a foster home when David and I went to Australia for a few weeks in 2016.  Our friends Nat and Andy did a wonderful job of looking after her because when she came back home she started growing like CRAZY!!!  Perhaps the change of scenery triggered a growth spurt?  Who knows.  What I do know is that she started overflowing her pot with this beautiful, lush, dark green leafery, cascading down the side, a luxuriant waterfall of frondescence. 

This was Shane about a year ago, having a shower. Rapunzel of the plant world.

Last year I gave  her a haircut.  I think it makes her look younger and more youthful, and it’s definitely easier for her to manage.  And despite being the grande dame of the bunch, she’s still growing new baby leaves, like a plant half her age.  Shane is a great example of a babe that doesn’t need too much attention to thrive.  In the 12 years we’ve had her, I’ve never repotted her.  And I only water her once a month.  I hope that what I’m doing keeps working and that she sticks around for a long time because I just love looking at her, chatting to her, touching her and waking up every morning to see her at the foot of my bed.  I’m used to having her around, and I love her. 

This is Shane today. No, she hasn’t had Botox (but thanks for asking).


VERA
Vera is an Aloe vera, also known as aloe vera.  I knicked a little cutting from the walking track behind our apartment a couple of years ago and she grows like she’s on steroids.  We have to keep cutting her back as she frequently outgrows her pot.  I like having her around because her gel reportedly has amazing healing properties, not least of which as a soothing gel to apply to sunburnt skin.  I can actually vouch for this one, as I got quite a nasty burn last year and the only thing that made me feel better was fresh aloe vera gel. 

Vera’s a bit of a wild child.


RICHARD
Richard is an Ixora coccinea, also known as a jungle geranium.  We bought him when we first moved into this apartment, just over five years ago.  He could probably do with a little more care, but guess what?  I’m the inside plant parent.  Outside is David’s domain.  I’m not laying any blame here.  Dubai’s “outside” is horrendously hot and inhospitable for most of the year, and any plant that can survive for five years on our balcony is a fucking superhero in my eyes.  In fact, David has done a remarkable job of keeping all the outdoor plants alive.  While Richard definitely looks less vital than when we first got him, he still flowers quite abundantly during the winter months which is just glorious to behold, and which must mean that even though he’s a little bit abused, he probably likes it? 

A friend was over the other day and looked out the window and asked, “Is that a bonsai?”. No, I said, that’s just Richard.


LOLI, ELLIE & BARB

Barb and Ellie. Never turn your back on these bitches – they will shiv you.

These assholes are Yucca gloriosas, also known as Spanish daggers.  As you can see we treat them like absolute shit, and they repay us by brutally stabbing us every opportunity they get.  We get along just fine.  As long as David keeps trimming and watering them (coz I won’t go anywhere near the bastards unless I absolutely have to), and as long as they don’t perforate our eardrums or skewer our eyeballs (which are apparently amongst the more common injuries inflicted by these shitheads) then they can stay.   

Meet Loli (it’s short for Lolita). We keep her on a separate balcony for our own protection.

Ejo #137 – My Green Babies (or Plants Are People Too): Part 1

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I’m fairly confident that in my last ejo I made it crystal clear that I am not the motherly type. But that doesn’t mean I’m incapable of being motherly. Or loving. Or that I can’t care for, or nurture, another living thing. I am absolutely obsessed with dogs, and utterly devastated that I can’t have one of my own. I accost the dog owners of our local community on the daily, shouting, “PUPPY!” at every adorable canine I see. But sadly, the wanderlusting lifestyle that David and I have chosen precludes us from owning a pet. But… it doesn’t stop us from owning plants.

As most of you know, my mother had a spectacularly green thumb. Her garden was legendary. I’m not sure I’ve inherited her horticultural abilities, but I don’t think it would be too bold to say that I am pretty good at keeping houseplants alive. That hasn’t always been the case, and many (too many) blameless green darlings have met their untimely demise whilst under my care. I have felt each one, as a dagger in my heart. I love my plants, as I would love my own children (and I will wrestle to the ground anyone who dares to challenge that premise). My plants are my babies, and no, that’s not weird. You’re weird.

My Mum’s glorious green wonderland.

Over the years I have learned to care for a variety of beautiful plants, through the aforementioned trial and error. I can now confidently and intuitively assess what each of my kiddies requires to thrive (or at least not die). The biggest secret I’ve learned? A little bit of tough love won’t kill ‘em. Overwatering is a far bigger assault than letting them dry out a bit. However, it’s not simply a case of popping them in a corner and watering them once in a while (though some plants are easier to look after than others – I’m looking at you Adele!!!). The needs of plants differ from one to the other, and from one day to the next. Houseplants may seem inert, but they are dynamic, living things. They get hungry, thirsty, hot, cold and sick. They can also be happy. I must say that I find it very fulfilling, having something to look after. I enjoy being responsible for these beautiful living organisms. And in turn they repay me with purified air, fresh oxygen and exquisite beauty. Who is looking after whom? Naturally they all have names, but I do want to point out that I don’t ever name them myself. They tell me what their own names are, when they’re ready. Sometimes that’s a couple of days after we adopt them, other times they whisper it to me from the supermarket shelf they’re sitting on. They are all unique and wonderful and I simply adore them. And so, just like a proud mummy showing off her precociously talented youngsters, I would like to introduce you to my green kiddies.


ADAN & LULU

Adan means Garden of Eden in Arabic.

Adan is an Aglaonema silver queen, also known as a Chinese evergreen. And LuLu is an Epipremnum aureum, also known as devil’s ivy. She’s also sometimes called golden pothos and she is ridiculously easy to care for and grow. Adan and LuLu are my “other” plant family. Some people have work husbands or work wives. I have work children. And yes, they are mine. Whenever I would visit the office levels of our building, I’d see all these amazing large potted plants around the place and that made me jealous for us tower folk, bereft of any greenery. So I asked facilities to please bring up one or two big plants for the tower, and what we got was Adan. Better than nothing. I’ve taped a little sign on him asking the other controllers to not water him, so he’s doing really well. He gets a lot of indirect sunlight and is rather delighted to be up in the tower rather than being stuck on a desk in some stuffy office.

It’s lovely to have a pop of colour in the dreary tower.

LuLu is actually a cutting of golden pothos that I rescued from someone’s workstation. She’s unusual in that she can grow in water and doesn’t need soil to survive. Clever girl, LuLu.


ADELE
Adele was a Spathiphyllum, commonly known as a peace lily. More like a grief lily, if you ask me. Adele has been my third attempt to care for a peace lily and she will definitely be the last. No matter what I do, I just cannot keep these little bitches alive. I don’t even think they’re that hard to look after. The folks at gardeningknowhow.com reckon that, “When it comes to indoor plants, peace lily plants are some of the easiest to care for.” What absolute bullshit. Just ask Adele. And Lillian. And Sylvia. I’m pretty sure they would disagree. Look, in the interests of full disclosure I will admit that of the three, Lillian’s death was probably my fault. Mea culpa. She was whining and wilting, so I popped her outside in the sunshine for a couple of hours in the hope of reviving her. How was I supposed to know that direct sunlight would kill her? Involuntary manslaughter, at worst.

I spit on your grave, Adele.

But Adele was supposed to be different. She was my chance at redemption. I kept her away from direct sunlight. I watered her with filtered water, I misted her. I caressed her. I spoilt her rotten. To no avail. She finally carked it a couple of weeks ago after a quite obnoxious, and melodramatically protracted, deathbed scene. That’s it for me, no more. Peace (lilies) out.


LUCY

A fifteenth chance at life.

Lucy is a Dracaena marginata, commonly known as a Madagascar dragon tree. I can’t even remember where I got Lucy, we’ve had her for so long. She’s grown from a wee baby dragon lass of about 20cm tall to the gorgeous Amazonian beauty you see today. But it hasn’t been an easy road with her. She really put us through the wringer, and there was a time that I wasn’t even sure she was going to make it. You wouldn’t know it looking at her lush foliage now, but for a few years she was simply unable to shake a mealybug (or scale) infestation – pests that cause plants to stop growing and start dropping their leaves, eventually leading to their death. I did everything I could. I would pick the little fuckers off individually, by hand. I sprayed her with a special soapy vodka solution. I put her outside. I moved her around the house. I would just sit with her. Nothing seemed to work. She would get better for a while and then the bugs would come back. At my lowest point, in desperation, I told David that if she didn’t get better I would just leave her outside and let someone else take her. Someone who might be able to look after her better. I’m not proud of that moment. But it happened, and I think it’s important that we talk about it. I’m so grateful that (with a lot of love and support) she managed to kick that bug habit to the kerb. After years of being feeble and sickly, she is now absolutely flourishing, strong and beautiful and I absolutely adore her, all the more for what she put us through. Her illness could have torn us apart, but instead it brought us closer together. And the biggest lesson she taught me: never give up.


DORIS
Doris is a Dracaena fragrans, commonly known as a corn plant. Doris is another old girl that once nearly died (though she was never as ill as Lucy). She just suffered from a general malade, and it took me a long time to figure out why. It was Doris who taught me about the dangers of overwatering. You feel that giving them more water is an act of love, but it’s actually a death sentence. Their roots start to rot and they slowly lose the will to live. I look at Doris now and marvel at the difference a cup of water a month makes.

The dry tips of Doris’ leaves mean that I’m still overwatering her. 😦


EUGENE
Eugene started off as a Gymnocalycium mihanovichii, which Google tells me is also sometimes called a ruby ball cactus. That’s because they’re supposed to look like this:

This is what Eugene is supposed to look like.

And Eugene did indeed start off looking like that. I have no idea what happened to him; perhaps he was bitten by a radioactive mealybug. But very shortly after he moved in, his ruby ball started to rot and wither away. Even though he was just a two buck ornamental toy cactus, I felt kind of ripped off. To be honest, I expected the rest of him to follow the ruby ball into an early grave, but shortly afterwards Eugene started growing in his own unique way. He grew so much that he started falling over so I decided to do some horticultural sculpting, practicing shibari, the ancient Japanese art of knot-tying on him. Every few months a cactus segment will grow out the side, so I lovingly and gently, but firmly, wrap the long, woody tendrils around the other ones, tying them all together. I have no idea how long we can keep this up, but I can guarantee that it won’t be me who says the safe word first.

This is what Eugene actually looks like.


SYBIL
Sybil is an Echeveria agavoides, also sometimes known as a wax agave. Sybil started off as one of those cute miniature succulent pots but she very quickly outgrew her home because she kept multiplying. This made her depressed and anxious, and she started dropping leaves so I did what every good mum would do and moved her into a nice big bowl where she has plenty of room to grow her own little babies (very adorably known as pups). You can call me grandmamma, I don’t mind!!

Sybil started off as one, then became two, and now she’s three.


STEWIE
Stewie is an Alocasia mortfontanensis, also known as elephant’s ears. He was another supermarket purchase and actually came in the big while bowl that Sybil is now residing in. The problem with the bowl for Stewie is that he likes a lot of drainage and the bowl doesn’t have any holes, so his roots became too wet and he started drooping and looking a bit wistful. I knew that I had to take immediate action, so I repotted him and moved him to a different spot (these two things really are the best first aid a plant can get). He has rewarded me with three gorgeous new leaves, and I reward him with cuddles and my unconditional love.

You can see why they call them elephant’s ears.


THE GANG

They’re called adult collectibles. I will not be answering any further questions.

Meet the gang. Sarah is a Dracaena trifasciata, also known as a mother-in-law’s tongue, or snake plant. She is a super slow grower which is probably for the best because apparently she has the potential to grow up to eight feet tall. Woah there Sarah, slow your roll girl!

Rico is a Goeppertia makoyana, also known as a peacock plant. What I love about Rico is that every night he becomes quite erect!!! I mean, literally. His leaves all stand to attention like little soldiers. It’s quite amazing to see. Also, when I took his picture right now to identify him correctly, the plant-Shazam app, Picture This, told me that I am a horrible mother and that plant services have been alerted. God, this parenthood jam just never lets up, does it.

I promise I’ll water him less from now on.

Fran is a Nephrolepis exaltata, also known as a Boston fern. I don’t do so well with ferns, and I’ve definitely killed more than my fair share. But I somehow managed to keep Fran from dying, pulling her back from the light at the eleventh hour. It really is a miracle that she’s still alive, to be honest. She has about twenty fronds right now, but after I conducted life-saving emergency surgery on her (with a Stanley knife, no less) she was left with just one sad, droopy little frond. As you can see she is slowly growing back. I mist her once in a while, and she seems to like that so I’ll keep doing it.

Sally is a Schefflera arboricola, also known as a dwarf umbrella tree. Sally is not my favourite plant in the world, and I have a feeling she knows it. She’s just so goddamn boring. Which is the exact reason I’m so glad I never had kids. What if I’d had a boring one!!! A tiresome child that I just couldn’t be arsed with. Imagine wishing (as I do with Sally) that I’d never brought the little bugger into the world/my home to start with. And now I feel guilty so I have to lavish her with some attention to make myself feel better. She’s still fucking boring though.

Fakey is the “plant” next to Sally on the bottom row (see what I did there). I own a couple of fake plants because I really love having greenery in the bathrooms and unfortunately our bathrooms are completely devoid of any natural light, which plants obviously need to live. Here are the other ones. They don’t have names, obvs, coz they’re not real.

I don’t love having fakeys but my brain still gets off on the green factor, and as far as fakeys go, these ones aren’t too bad.

To be continued…..

Ejo #136 – It’s My Body, And I’ll Cry If I Want To (Part 1)

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On the 14th April I celebrated one full year without my period.  This means that I am now officially in menopause.  Yay!  The period (haha) leading up to this momentous occasion is known as peri-menopause and can last anywhere between a few months and ten years!  Mine lasted about three years and the first time I became aware of it was when my period, which has always had atomic-clock precision regularity, was three months late.  Even then, it wasn’t the first thing I suspected.  I bought a home pregnancy kit, not for the first time but hopefully for the last, and was surprised and enormously relieved that it was negative.  But my period remained conspicuously absent, so I went to the doctor to get some answers about what was going on down there. 

When the lab test came back negative as well, the doctor said to me, somewhat tenderly, “Well, you are 46.”  Of course!!!  It was a lightbulb moment.  And one of mixed emotions.  “Yay”, I’m not preggers.  “Boo”, I’m getting old.  And “Duh”, because menopause is genetic and my Mum was also in her forties when she went through it.  I’m a woman of a certain age, so menopause was always kind of hovering in the background.  I had just been so preoccupied with the horrific notion of baby fixin’s growing inside of me that I’d forgotten to consider it. 

After that my periods started fucking around even more.  They went from being super light to super heavy.  From regular as clockwork to extremely unpredictable (once every three months, once every six days, whenever it goddamn felt like it).  And they went from lasting just two or three days to dragging out over a week, ten days, more.  Worst of all, they became excruciatingly painful.  There were several days I couldn’t go to work because I was physically unable to unfurl myself from a foetal position.  And I wouldn’t have been able to work a two hour stint in the tower without bleeding all over myself and the furniture anyway.

So when my period stopped coming, it was a welcome respite from all the bloody drama.  The last twelve months have passed without a single drop of blood being shed from my uterus.  That’s one of the perks of menopause.  Some of the downsides?  Insomnia, physical and mental exhaustion, having to go to the toilet all the time, itchy skin (it’s called formication – no, FORMICATION), a pudgy belly and intense joint discomfort in my entire skeleton.  I do feel pretty lucky to not suffer any of the emotional and depressive symptoms which are pretty common in menopausal women.  And so far I’ve also managed to dodge the vaginal dryness and sexy-time problems.  Can I get a high five!! 

Good times.

The hot flushes though.  Fuck me, they are not a joke.  They come on like an actual volcanic eruption.  From somewhere very deep inside my body, from my very core, an intense heat starts radiating out like rising lava until my organs, my muscles, my bones and my skin are all ablaze.  It feels like I’m actually heating the air around me.  I’ve never experienced anything like it.  It is a total body clusterfuck, and it’s extraordinarily uncomfortable.  During particularly intense flushes my skin breaks out in sweat, rivulets of which pour down my face and upper body.  And the night sweats are even worse.  We’re talking full body saturation and drenched sheets.  This happens almost every night while David sleeps beside me, shivering because I need to have the air-conditioning set to cold.   

So, why am I telling you all this?  Let me try to explain.  When it comes to being a woman, sometimes it can feel like we are all alone.  We’re made to feel shame for our bodies and what happens to them, especially as we get older.  It might seem that there are no more taboos left, and that we can talk about almost anything these days.  But watch what happens when women want to talk about having miscarriages or abortions, or being raped.  Watch what happens when women want to talk about sex work or birth control or incontinence or sexual harrassment.  Watch what happens when women want to breastfeed in public.  Or when we talk about menopause or periods or vaginal discharges or the other (somehow worse) taboo of vaginal dryness.  We’re made to feel disgusting, and that talking about our bodies is dirty.  That it’s wrong to talk about the things that happen in between our legs.  That it’s Too Much Information and we should keep it to ourselves. 

I’m not thrilled to be discussing this shit with you.  Why not?  Because it feels wrong, and somehow dirty.  Do you see what I mean??  And that, precisely, is the reason that I am writing about it.  The concept of privacy here can be a double-edged sword.  It can be protective, sure, but it can also be used as a means of repression or censorship.  I’m prepared to sacrifice my right to “privacy” in the hope of making some positive impact.  Every woman’s experience of this stuff is different, but if I can do something to smash the taboo (or at least chip away at it, even just a little bit) by putting my private bits out there, then I’mma do it.  If one woman reads this and feels seen, I’m cool with whatever stigma comes along for the ride.  If one woman reads this and feels less alone, then it’s totally worth it. 

So, if for some reason you feel uncomfortable reading this, then of course feel free to drop out here.  But I do urge you to confront your discomfort and keep on reading.  It certainly wasn’t easy or comfortable for me to write it, but I pushed through.  Because I sincerely feel that it’s important to have this conversation.  To make it OK to talk about it.  Whether you decide to keep reading or not is completely up to you.  But you’ve been warned.  Shit’s about to get real. 

The first time I became pregnant I was living in the US, working as an au pair.  The upper age limit for the job was 26, and I barely scraped in, turning 27 three days after starting work.  So I was “old” for an au pair.  But in many ways I was still very innocent, naïve and young.  I was not a worldly 27 year old.  I was a baby.  Before starting the job I had held some loosely conceived, vague notions of one day becoming a mother.  Nothing that I would call an urge, though.  More like a pre-programmed setting that hazily loomed in the far distance.  I always used to say that my biological clock must have been digital, because I never heard it tick.  But during my time away in the US, I came face to face with motherhood.  And I realised I wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. 

At the airport on my way to the USA to be an au pair. Definitely not mother material.

Long story short.  The year was 1998, and I was a wide-eyed ingénue, living in a small town in Connecticut.  I met a guy, I liked him, we had a lot of sex, the condom broke, I got pregnant.  I did not enjoy being impregnated.  I was absolutely appalled that my body had allowed itself to be implanted with the ingredients of a human being.  I physically hated it too.  The embryo would only have grown to the size of a kidney bean (I’ve blown out boogers that were bigger), but it physically felt as if my body had been occupied by some powerfully evil force.  I was relentlessly unsettled and nauseous.  I felt consumed, colonised, like my life was being sucked out of my body by a greedy parasite.  I hated this creature growing inside of me, using me, without my permission.  I punched myself in my stomach 15 times a day, hoping to dislodge my unwanted passenger.  Every morning I’d walk Daniel and Holly to the bottom of the driveway to wait for the school bus.  After waving them off, I would climb up a large boulder near the mailbox and jump off repeatedly in the hopes of jarring the little fucker out of my uterus.  I nearly broke my ankle slipping on the frozen ground.  When my period still didn’t come I scheduled an abortion. 

Afterwards, my boyfriend and I went out for lunch.  Even though I was fuzzy from the sedative, I can still remember feeling absolutely fucking great.  A malignant growth had been excised from my body, and I was reborn.  I had escaped a future I was incapable of living, and everything around me seemed beautiful.  I felt peace for the first time in ten weeks.  That night I had a babysitting job with the family across the street.  As I patiently tucked the clingy little girl into bed and soothed the whiny toddler to sleep, I knew I had made the right decision.  I waited for the regret to come, I was ready to face it.  But it never did.  And it never has.

People have asked me why I never wanted children.  They’ve wondered if perhaps there was some trauma in my childhood that prevented me from wanting to create a family of my own.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  My childhood was idyllic.  There were ups and downs, of course, but I look back on those years as being as close to a perfect childhood as you can get.  I don’t mind being asked why I haven’t had kids.  But the more pertinent question to me is why people do choose to have them.  To be brutally honest, I’m confused by all the babymaking.  I don’t understand the urge to breed.  Maybe I’m missing a gene, or something. 

Nearly all my friends have had kids, and I love (most of) them.  So I don’t want to offend anyone here, but having children seems like the most basic thing you can do.  Algae reproduces sexually.  Having offspring feels like the default evolutionary option.  Like a stage in a life cycle that people go through without stopping to question why they’re doing it.  Why they want it so much.  The instinct to procreate, to reproduce, to spawn is a primitive one.  It is an animalistic drive.  Is it judgemental to feel that I am above that primal urge?  I guess it is (sorry, not sorry).  Pardon me, but I’m proud of the fact that I haven’t mindlessly added another human being to an already overpopulated world.  I’m proud of the fact that I chose the road less travelled.  That I didn’t have children simply because that’s what we’re “supposed” to do in order to be fulfilled.

So am I a more complete human being, for not having the imperative to pass on my DNA?  Or am I incomplete?  Nature designed us to survive and multiply.  Does my choice make me superior to nature?  Or am I one of nature’s mistakes?  Thinking of myself as being more evolved, because I’ve chosen not to have kids is actually fucking hilarious.  Because my “evolved” genes are gonna die with me.  Nature wins.  Nature always wins.  Brava nature.  Fucking slow clap, bitch. 

My next two abortions (minor wins against nature) were performed in Australia.  I feel very lucky to have had such easy access to terminations when I desperately needed them.  I always had a safe and legal way to exercise my right to choose what happens to my body.  All three of my abortions were excellent decisions.  I wouldn’t say I’m proud of them, but I’m certainly not ashamed.  And if I were to become pregnant today, I would have another abortion.  Because, when I tell you that I don’t want to be a mother, when I say that I don’t want children, I really mean it.  I’m thankful to be childless, and I love my life just the way it is.  Nearly three months before my 50th birthday, I am thrilled to not have to worry about any more “accidents”.  No longer being so goddamn fertile is definitely a perk of menopause and almost makes the rest of the shitshow worth it.  But, I’ll be getting David to pop on a condom for a little while longer.  Just in case.