#badanty status
(Just sitting here publishing old posts…this one is from January 2018. #mightdelete)
After the demise of my previous longterm relationship, among the things I mourned was the loss of family and home we’d created.
My queerness is relatively lacking in subtlety (some might say this is true for more than just my queerness…). And so part of my path as been figuring out how to create home and family within and without the narratives I’d ingested all my life.
One of the things I mourned was the apparent loss of the possibility of children in my life. Long ago, I decided it was better to err on the side of caution and not attempt parenting until I was sure-sure. I still hold that to be true. And unlike many of my friends, I don’t have a particularly strong biological urge to pass along my specific DNA (there’s plenty more where I come from, both my folks are from big families, and my sister has produced a pretty awesome nephew, so I feel somewhat covered wrt the gene pool).
There’s also a part of me that conflates children and puppies.* So I guess I always imagined that if I were meant to have kids in my life, it’d happen. And so, even as I mourned, I also decided. I decided that I wanted to have kids in my life. I decided that I didn’t know — that I didn’t need to know — what shape that might take.
Fairly immediately, I started noticing that I was frakkin surrounded by the little buggers. My friends have been somewhat prolific in populating the queer universe. (And yes, it’s good looking and smart.)
There’s something about being a #badanty that is easy and wonderful. I get to fill up the creatures with sugar, hand them back, and return to my relatively less chaotic adult life. (Oh man, how much do I love the wide expanses of quiet I get…) Part of me still has huge anxiety with all of this. It feels so much more tenuous and sometimes lonely. There’s always a risk and a sense that I’m not anyone’s primary familial relationship. I don’t own anyone, nor am I owned by anyone. Which is good, really. I don’t want relationships based on obligation and ownership. It’s also not what we’re taught (blood is thicker than water, etc. etc. etc.).
It’s strange. In a lotta ways, I’m a traditionalist. I like monogamy; I like the reassuring nature of traditions; I like putting down roots and creating a home. After a moderately itinerant childhood, I love that I have been in the bay for over half my life. I love — and am so unbelieveable grateful — that I’ve been able to call #bellyp home for over a decade now.
And. I love that I have to, that I get to, create new narratives. I love choosing the people I love, and also knowing that I’ve also found a quiet solo happiness that isn’t dependent on family/relationship structures.
True. I’m still not sure who’ll take care of me when I’m less able to go it on my own. (No lie, I already know which nearby SNF I’d want to live in, just in case.)
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*As a matter of fact, I got my first dog as an adult to prove to myself that I could parent another living creature without passing along too many of my flaws/traumas/negative narratives.
