Hello, my darlings. I hope this correspondence finds you well.
I like to imagine you as two little stardust blobs up in the cosmos. Amorphously bopping around, drinking fountain sodas out of a straw. Just enjoying being spirit matter among the vastness of the “other side.”
Here’s the thing. I’ve chosen not to bring you into the human experience. Please don’t be upset. I’m literally doing you a favor.
I wasn’t born to be a mother, and It’s fucking bonkers down here.
Oops, I curse, by the way, but studies show it’s a sign of intelligence, and I bet you guys are intelligent, so I’m just going to keep doing it, Ok? Ok.
Look, the human experience does have its perks: music, falling in love, Fall in Central Park, laughing until you cry, and the show Schitt’s Creek, to name a few. But I don’t know if they’re worth having to deal with all of life’s yucky icks like paying taxes, dealing with health insurance, or being alive during the dumbest government that’s ever existed.
Also, we have FUCKED UP The Earth. Which, for now, is the planet you’d be living on. It’s been happening for a really long time, but the industrial and technological age has really pushed us to a point of no return. And now a bunch of rich pricks are trying to use their money to find a planet B, but their companies are the ones destroying the planet we have now, so it’s like a whole backward thing. There are a lot of backward things here, btw. I won’t bore you with all of them. The point is, I don’t know what type of planet would be left for you or your kids in the future, and I feel simultaneously guilty and terrified about it.
Also, you’d probably live in America, which has what’s called “School Shootings” now. That’s a thing. Yeah, people with mental health issues—which are seemingly rampant in this era—use guns— which are VERY rampant in this country—to go into schools with children of any and all ages and just start shooting them up. Can you even imagine the horror??
The fucking horror.
If you were here, I’d have to be OK with sending you to school every day from the time you’re 4 or 5 to 21 years old. I’d have to explain to you why no amount of logic will ever get us to a place where our government would lift a finger to stop this. And it’s not just schools, unfortunately; it’s malls, movie theaters, and concerts. Even churches! This further leads me to believe there’s no God. Is there a God? You guys would be the ones to ask. Can you confirm or deny?
Personally, I can’t handle the anxiety. That would not be enjoyable for any of us. Trust me.
I will say that there are really wonderful things down here, like sunsets and pizza and mind-bending concerts, which are fantastic. And there are definitely little moments of such pure beauty and wonder that would make you grateful to be alive, but I just…can’t.
I’ve never heard the mother song.
I am an UNmother.
I’m too selfish and ill-equipped to give up sleep and gobs of my life to watch children’s programming or the movie Frozen 900 times. I don't think I’d enjoy spending my every waking moment transporting you like an Uber to your kid activities: soccer and dance and karate and play dates. I feel very strongly about the fact that I would slowly go mad if I had to live in a place called “The Suburbs” where I’d inevitably have to move to in order to give you the upbringing you deserve.
You’d probably be cool adults at some point, and that’s a possibility I’ll never get to enjoy, but I don’t think I’d be able to get you there without ruining you terribly. Mothers are the strongest, most remarkable people in this world, and I know myself enough to know I’m not one of them. Don’t get me wrong, I think I’m pretty cool, but I’m no mother.
Not to mention the havoc you’d wreak on my body, as it is, I work out 5 days a week, and my midsection is STILL a hot mess. Can you imagine what harboring your little body inside mine would do to my blubbery middle? It would be irreversible damage that would eat away at me like a parasite. I fear I’d resent you for it, and it would show. That you would feel it and internalize it, or worse, I’d pass down the genetic betrayal that is my legacy, as well as my body dysmorphia. I’d never forgive myself.
Plus, what if you’re “other” or weak or challenged in some way, or even worse, born female with a slow metabolism? The world isn’t that kind to you (for the most part.) And I’m too emotional and hot-headed at times to let the world be an asshole to you.
In my lifetime alone, there’s been a pandemic, sex trafficking exists, we put a lunatic con man in office, and there’s some natural disaster happening every week now. We may also be headed to another world war. I’ve seen what war does to children, and I simply CAN NOT BEAR IT.
It’s not looking great, is all I’m saying.
The most loving thing I can think of doing for you is allowing you to remain blissfully unaware of any of it. Floating little stardust blobs in the sky above.
I hope you can understand.
Love,
Mom.