You'll Figure It Out

04.15.2010

A strange phenomenon has started to occur. I’ve been writing this blog for a little over a month now and I’m starting to see a transformation within my thoughts when it comes to thinking about children. I still have all the fears and concerns and a sense that I’m going to completely lose my identity, but there’s something that has started to continuously counteract those thoughts. The following words pop into my head: You’ll figure it out.

I have always been so terrified of making mistakes because of my own obsession with perfection, as well as just the “normal”, societal pressures of being perfect. Everyone always says there’s no guidebook to really tell you how to parent. You can read all the baby books beforehand but you’re never truly prepared for it all. And I would imagine that each situation, each child is so unique that it’s virtually impossible to be prepared ahead of time. And I think this is one of the major reasons as to why it’s so difficult for me to come to a definitive answer, or rather, definitive commitment to having kids.

I’ve always been a planner, the one to take charge in any situation so that the job (or whatever’s needed) gets done. One would think that with this quality so strong within me that it’d be natural for me to want to run out and be a parent cause I could then plan, schedule, and organize not just my life but another person’s as well. But that’s just the thing. I’m a planner and a take charge kind of person because I’m so unbelievably scatterbrained and usually running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I have to take charge and I have to feel like I’ve accomplished something at the end of the day otherwise I’m lost. In other words, I can barely take care of myself. I have to actively work at it and the thought of having to “take charge” of a child and to be prepared ahead of time for the child’s needs really scares the shit out of me.

But I guess…I’ll figure it out. Somehow. Right? Cause…what’s the alternative?