And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I Was Ready

by Meaghan O'Connell

How good it was to have something I was scared to want but wanted all the same.

Motherhood was the farthest thing from the lives we were living but still out there waiting for us, the great “eventually,” the great “inevitably.” Of course we had more important things to do first, or that was the party line. We had our careers. Was it a defensive act, our busy-ness? All those photos of how full and rich and happy our lives were, as if to say, See, we’re fine without children. Quick, someone plan a dinner party or a weekend upstate before we start squinting at our boyfriends, wondering if they’d meet us halfway.

We told one another we had till we were thirty-eight but privately thought thirty-five. If you wanted more than one kid—and who would dare to be so greedy—well, best to start at thirty-three. Just don’t share this out loud. Life math, years counted out on fingers across from one another in bars and diner booths in big cities across America, dictated that you needed a year or two of marriage before you had kids so you could “enjoy life as a married couple,” which felt as compulsory as it was made up. Pregnancy was ten months. Everyone said nine but we knew better. Our expertise on the subject of pregnancy was a dead giveaway of our private preoccupation, much as we’d disavow it. A year to plan a wedding (though, if necessary, six months)…and there we were, back at our current age. Twenty-eight. Fuck.

I do not intellectually subscribe to the idea that expense is a reliable indicator of quality, but I suppose that when it comes down to it, my gut is ruled by the illusions of capitalism.

If only I had the sort of spiritual stamina to stay in profundity longer, to not find it oppressive after ten minutes.