Alice Keith

My sister-in-law used to be obsessed with the notion of top dog-ism, I think that’s the same as the type ‘A’ personality. The implication was most clearly that in her scenario, she was the top dog. That’s how she saw the world, families organised in the same way as a pack of dogs. Each person has a role in the pack, and the pack treat each person according to their role. The pack must have a runt, the one that doesn’t have the same standing, the same privileges, the same respect. They’re the ones that gets scraps from the table.

I would leave these encounters with her, firmly convinced that I wasn’t part of this pack, I was in fact, a cat.

Years down the line and little did I know that I would still be at the bottom of the family pack. I may now have a partner, finally, found at the age of 39, but the traditional life that I had imagined for myself did not materialise. Not the career, not marriage, not a house and garden and not children. It took a good while for me and my partner to work out how to be together and while we were doing that, years passed. My partner was ok to try for children, but not adopt, not foster and not really involve him, not really. It was my dream.

I put my energies into loving, other people’s children, including my nieces and nephew and of dreaming that the love I had to give, might one day be channelled into my own children.

Time drifted on and I tried different, natural remedies, spoke to doctors who made me ashamed, angry, embarrassed at my tiny hopes in my advanced years. I developed fibroids and experienced flooding periods. I had to leave work one day because I had unexpectedly flooded through my clothes, which was mortifying. I tried acupuncture until the Chinese lady told me about increased chances of having a baby with special needs. I didn’t need her to tell me that. I knew that.

I wrote out affirmations and dreams and kept my dreams to myself. I was happy for everyone else’s birthdays and shared in my friend’s lives as mothers. My partner said to me, we were too old now to have children. I knew we were too old. But I still hoped. That hope doesn’t die because you are too old. Or because it’s highly highly highly unlikely. It only dies when you stop having periods, when you start menopausing.

Menopausing for me, is not just the end of periods, the sleeplessness, the weight gain, it’s a final death of hope for the life you had wanted.

For me, the life that I had wanted was full of the little milestones, the pride in your children, in watching them grow daily and being a part of that process. The laughter and fun and tears and worries and connection. A full life. The photos, summer holidays, the meals, the illnesses, clothes, shoes, hair, bedrooms, books, films, sleepovers, Halloween, Easter, Christmas. None of it, you get none of it, you miss all of it. You don’t talk to people about all that you are missing, but you are witnessing the missing of all of it as it happens around you, without, in front of you.

As the runt of my family pack, when opportunities to spend time with the nieces and nephew are available, they go to grandparents and family friends and other aunts and uncles. My needs are not important and so I miss out. It’s hard to swallow.

An acquaintance of mine, whose life revolves around her grown up kids said that line to me, ‘you’re lucky you don’t have kids’. It was a lie. She didn’t mean it. She gains all her social status from being a mother. She meant to be mean. I ignored her and walked off. I try my best not to get into conversations with her. If she knew how well she’d got me with that off-hand comment, it would make her feel good and she might try again.

My sister-in-law, does not care how I feel. Now with all this extra time on my hands it’s given me a chance to really review how an uncle of mine was treated by my family when I was growing up. He never married and was a quiet gentleman. He was never treated with honour or respect by my parents and we all followed their lead. I wish I had treated him better. He deserved better. I can see that story repeating itself.

I leave my family dynamics feeling defeated. In the year of my fiftieth, I’ve been trying to celebrate my life, to combat the feelings of desolation that I have been feeling. But where I have looked for solace, I have found disconnection. I met up with my friends of thirty years, but they are all mothers and want to share stories of their children. Individually, I love hearing about their children, but collectively, I see the invisible spotlight come on and I witness what I lack. This lack goes on, it will not stop. So now instead of keeping treasured items to pass on to children, I am thinking, who will be with me at the last.