It’s been a week where my inner experience hasn’t always lined up with my outer one. I’ve felt lonely in a crowd. I’ve also felt lonely in my remote job, caring deeply but unable to read others in the same way I would if I was in person.
This sentiment, combined with gearing up to celebrate my dear friend Emily’s wedding next month, led me to revisit my reflections on her interview talking about the particular breed of loneliness that can surround decisions about having kids—something I felt for many years and continue to feel about the second kid decision. In an upcoming post, I’ll reflect on ways to turn loneliness around, including by remembering that it’s not only me who gets lonely—it’s all of us.
Indecision can be lonely. The kind of lonely that itches me awake in the first moments of sleep, the kind that pounces on me unexpectedly at parties. No one else is like you, the loneliness says. Just look at them, with their sure smiles and unperplexed eyebrows.
I am grateful to Emily for sharing vulnerably about how lonely she has felt being undecided about having kids, with most people in her life firmly decided one way or the other. She shared in a raw and real way not only that she has felt torn, but why, describing the appeals and drawbacks of both paths in a way that made me feel the familiar push and pull in my chest.
My many years of indecision about motherhood sometimes felt debilitatingly lonely, especially as I watched more and more people around me go on their merry knowing way toward having children or not.
I’ve learned that I am often less alone than I think. Even if others aren’t undecided about the same things, we all know indecision. Through writing this newsletter, I’ve discovered that more people experienced indecision about having kids than I once thought.
One difference may be in how long we typically linger in indecision. Some of us dash toward decisions cheetahs, gaining momentum as we go, and others dawdle like elephants.
Like Emily, I am a big lingerer. I’m coming to accept this about myself. I am grateful for the many years I took to feel through the decision to have a baby and to feel through my first book. For me, that was the time these processes took, and I am more settled inside of myself now because of them.
But the lingering can’t last forever; at some point, even us elephants reach the brink. I start to feel a tug that comes more from my gut than my head, pulling me along by inches.
I’ve succumbed to the fallacy of thinking that because I can imagine many paths, I can live many paths, for as long as I stay undecided. It’s a fallacy that has sometimes made me stall in indecision rather than move through it. Honoring that little tug that draws me one way over another, and then giving myself over to that path, is a practice I’m still learning.
Some people are an elephant-sort-of-cheetah. They sit with a position on things for a long time, but almost out of nowhere, it changes and immediate action occurs in an instant. It can be jarring to others and catches them off guard. Like when, after many years of vocally not having any interest in remarrying (I already had 2 kids, a divorce, a blossoming but demanding career, and a home of my own), I said to my “boyfriend “ of 8 years (who conveniently lived across the street): “I think we should get married.” I thought he would fall off his chair! He wanted to but, knowing my negative view on remarrying, was concerned that I would regret the question and his answer. He said we should reconvene in 2 weeks so I could think more about it, which we did. I hadn’t changed my mind. After several months discussing the big “when” question, I called him from work on a Monday in January and said “how about Friday? It’s been 27-1/2 years since that Friday of being happily married. I cannot explain how my decision making kicks in so confidently after holding a different view for so long — or even what triggers it — but it happens in an instant and just feels right. (BTW, marrying my husband was the right decision. 🥰)
This is so timely for me. Wow. I’m glad to know I’m not alone!!