Swing Dancing

I think it’s time to bring Anger Month to its close. It was good to marinate for a while in my petulant and peevish thoughts, but no more. Lately I still feel like an emotional rollercoaster anyway. I can be out with Max picking up dinner, sitting in the car talking and laughing and having a fun time, and then something triggers me and tears start coming down my face a couple of seconds later. I really feel emotionally incontinent right now. Or crazy is another word for it.

I received a letter from an old friend this week, Regina, who is a German lawyer. We’ve visited each other in each other’s countries and hit it off. Like me, she had a baby in her forties, a baby girl who is now all grown up. I met Regina through Thomas, a German law student who worked at one of the law firms where I was employed back in the day. Thomas was really fun. We did a lot of touring together, and went swing dancing, and once he drove me to Atlantic City to try out for Jeopardy. (I didn’t make it.)

In her letter, Regina told me that she had seen Thomas recently. They met for coffee and caught up on each others’ lives. I haven’t seen Thomas since I went to his wedding to Sylvie in 1999. Regina said in her letter that Thomas is working for a firm helping German businesses divest of Russian assets, and that he and Sylvie have a house in France where he loves to cook and drink wine. She also said that Thomas and Sylvie have no children. For some reason this made me terribly sad.

I suppose that Thomas and Sylvie could have chosen to not have kids, but it just seemed to me that they had been denied this primary experience, and that this was sad and even tragic. As if there must be a long medical saga behind it or even possibly stillbirth or death. I’m probably projecting wildly, and I have no idea and certainly don’t plan on asking.

Can you really mature into yourself if you are not a parent? I probably am not asking that question very articulately. Being a parent is such a life-changing experience. I didn’t really forgive my own parents for so many issues until I became a parent. I was a perfect mother in every way before I actually became a mother (in my own mind), and I didn’t understand why my mother couldn’t be perfect too.

I guess my sadness for Thomas and Sylvie’s childlessness comes out of my sadness at our new childlessness. I picture in my mind Thomas struggling to answer strangers’ questions about how many children he has, and it’s awkward for him, and he probably hates being asked. But Thomas was always very convivial and affable and gregarious and smooth and speaks five or six languages and probably is not at all anxious in the way I imagine. He probably loves his life and the few times a year I connect with him on LinkedIn he seems quite happy. I think I need some emotional Depends.