Her skin began to blemish.
Red spots were rising up my friend's throat like a rising thermometer.
We were Facetiming, I'm in Edinburgh, Scotland, she's in New York, from our closets. She locked herself away from her two small children. Having received a promotion shortly before quarantine, she struggled to keep up with her new responsibilities along with the attention that her children's homeschooling and other activities demanded. She was a solitary caregiver while her husband worked in his nearby office. She explained that she needed a break from the screaming and constant needs of her children.
I was in a locked bubble bath.
She couldn't hide her annoyance at finding me during my daily self-care act of quarantine.
"It's hard," she warned that being a mother. "You think you know, but you don't realize how difficult it is until you get into it."
“I have a clue,” I reminded her.
When I was growing up, I regularly heard my father say that he would like to wait for me, and from an early age I knew that I would not make the same mistake. “Readiness” came to me later than most, but not because I did not want to have children. And although I agree with the proverb "you nevernot ready" were the things I wanted before shifting my focus from myself to my family. The older I got, the less I needed to have a partner - in life and in order to have children. I'm really grateful that I didn't marry the men I wanted to marry in my 20s, especially since I didn't have their children forever associated with bad choices.
For various reasons, I did not have the opportunity to have children under 30 years old. Instead, I unapologetically used this time to become the person I imagined.before the birth of a child became an impending deadline. Despite passive-aggressive warnings from a debutant cult, I didn't cringe or die because I was single and childless when I turned 35. Instead, I took a sabbatical from "growing up", moved to other countries and spent the death rattle of my youth. take advantage of loneliness and the absence of children with minimal responsibilities. I hung out - along with red Solo Cups - didn't care about finances, even joined Tinder. I thought, of course, during this time I would meet someone promising. However, none of the men I met were in the "runaway" category.
So, when I was in my 40s, I started thinking about the intention of becoming a single mother, and soon after that I met a wonderful man who did not want children. At the time, I wrote about how I struggled with this relationship and the certainty of my desire to have a child, categoricallydeclaring that I would raise them alone if I had to . No doubt, deceived by love, I hoped that he would consider dating me as a single mother (through adoption), especially since we had a strong friendship. But when Scotland was on lockdown, it made sense for us to “separate,” he said.
“I can't do this alone,” my friend continued during our conversation. "I think if you really knew, you wouldn't go through this alone."
Now I was first.
How could I tell she was wrong? For a man who has endured relentless sardonic comments about being single and childless for decades, worrying only about himself during a global pandemic has become like a win. After the gloating of watching panicky parents who are actually parents 24/7 subsided, I witnessed them wrestling with impossible expectations in real time. People who were content with kids before the pandemic spoke very loudly to me as they struggled - some for the first time - with having to balance remote work and their kids' daily routines without social returns.
It seemed to me that I only had to worry about myself during a global pandemic, as a winning hand.
It definitely made me appreciate my loneliness during this lockdown even more. I think it's better to be alone at times than to be trapped all the time.
Even without children, quarantine began to undermine my mental health. I considered adoption partly because I'm afraid of becoming emotionally drained by the hormonal changes that pregnancy can cause, especially without a partner's support system. And partly because I don’t want to give birth myself. Of course, no one expected that this is exactly what would be required of so many women who gave birth during the COVID-19 crisis. Reading their stories gave me an idea of how difficult it would be for me and my child; a particularly lonely option, given the absence of a family.
Not to mention the obvious: what would I do if I got sick as a single mother? Or injured? I briefly recovered from a severe knee dislocation that left me unable to walk for several weeks. Even then, I was grateful for not being a mom when it happened, although it would have been forgotten if not for the coronavirus.
Plus, there's the stress of being a parent in unexpected situations, highlighted by today's wildly volatile times.
Eight weeks after my imprisonment, I discovered that my cat was throwing up a string. I was beyond panic and called my ex sobbing. Despite not speaking for weeks, he dropped everything to accompany me to the vet.
As we sat outside, six feet wide, in an unusually hot Scottish sun, I watched a thin but constant trickle of sweat run down his face. I wondered if he would have rushed to my helper if it had been my child and not my cat.
"Can you imagine if it was a child?" I have asked.
"Oh yes," he said, "that's why I don't want him."
Now I'm seriously considering the question that got me thinking about quarantine: Do I really want to do this alone?
I dive deeper into the bath.
The bubbles rise with the steam and my skin starts to blemish.
