You know, for as long as I could remember I never envisioned my future past a certain point. I’m not sure if it was because I was basking in youth and I didn’t care to plan ahead that far, or perhaps I never thought I’d make it that far in my personal timeline. 

I could imagine high school, maybe college, but very little after that. I wasn’t that little girl trying on mom’s dresses and jewelry using my stuffed animals as the many guests to my pretend wedding. In fact I only recall having two thoughts about marriage when I was a kid: I first wondered if instead of a gown I could get away with sporting white overalls (wasn’t much for dresses) and the second thought was I was stressed out of my mind that I would have to kiss my husband-to-be in front of close friends and family. That last part doesn’t really bother me too much anymore when I think about it.

That is the extent to my associates with marriage as a kid.

I feel like…that if I had a stronger sense of marriage and family growing up that perhaps I would have fantasized more about the two subjects, but both were absent. I suppose I shouldn’t write off the marriage and family being entirely absent in my childhood, but they were definitely skewed, fabricated, and short-lasting.

On a typical day I wouldn’t wallow in the past and contemplate my upbringing. I truly believe to my core that with all the dysfunction between my parents, my mother and I’s relationship, and to be honest just the constant uncertainty that comes along with my mother and father…I am glad I grew up the way I did. I developed a strong sense of independence.  

Unfortunately today really wasn’t that typical.

My first reaction over this thing, as petty as I know it is, was to cry.

I wasn’t mad, or jealous ( want to make that clear), I think I started to cry because I just don’t understand. I wish I knew what having a family was supposed to feel like so I wouldn’t cry over petty things.

I used to cry a lot growing up because I didn’t feel like I was growing up “normally”. I’m not even sure what that even means to me today, but back then I guess it meant to have two parents that could at least tolerate each other, maybe take family vacations, or even go out to dinner sometimes together. To respect, communicate, and live together. I feel like we couldn’t even handle two of those three at one given time. We just didn’t have that; I really enjoy the idea of that closeness. So I guess I even cry now for not being normal.

Usually I don’t think about having kids. I think I have a tendency to think that I won’t be good with kids; I don’t think I’d make a good mother at all. I have no experience with babies or toddlers, I can’t cook, and my mouth resembles a sailor’s at times. As I grow older though, and as I am beginning to enter the next stage in my life I start to image a future that takes place in maybe, 10 years or so. And you know what? I really want a family, to make up for the one I didn’t have growing up. It’s something I look forward to.