I haven’t had sex with anyone for over 10 years. Not by choice, not intentionally, not that I don’t want to. It’s just that it hasn’t happened. For whatever reasons. For reasons that stupefy me, baffle me, embarrass me, make me feel like a complete freak. All those things and more, every day. Every day I think about it. Every day I wonder why, every day I feel more and more abnormal and retreat into self-pity. Constant reminders in the outside world. Trying to shut it out. Nothing mirrors my confusion out there, nothing explains why.
And I was thinking how, with also being involuntarily childless, the same feelings apply. It’s the dread of someone asking, the implication, the assumption. The assumption. That because I haven’t mentioned partners and children it’s best to just keep talking about theirs, dropping the royal “we” into the conversation and then the inevitable mention of their children. Of course they have children. Or perhaps they catch a glance at the screen saver of the dog on the mobile and they know. They know. Where is the cute child in sunglasses? Look at what they have created. It was like breathing for them. A walk in the park. Their assumptions fulfilled in the blink of an eye.
All day I am reminded. The shout of children on the way to school, handsome men with baby pics on their phones. Where’s the wedding band? There it is..there it bloody well is….I imagine their life; I imagine what it’s like. I imagine how it feels to fit it in and to be normal. To have the world apply to you rather than trying to make it fit me. And it won’t and it doesn’t and it never will, however much I try. So many weddings, so many growing bumps, so many announcements. And the parents are getting younger and younger as I get older and older. Past the time when it could have been me. Beyond the point when people wonder if you have or you haven’t, if you will or you won’t. Partners or children. They just don’t care.
And here I am, at 51, wondering what’s next. Wondering how to deal with the pain that not holding someone’s hand for so long can bring. Or of having the choice, the chance, the growing bump, the possibility of more. The envy of young women still having the choice, the chance yet still blissfully unaware of it. The desperate loss of time and opportunity that nothing seems to quieten.
And how, every second, every hour, every day I wonder why. Until it becomes overwhelming and I try and make sense of it by thinking there is a greater destiny. A bigger purpose. But the sadness comes back, it returns again and again and it won’t go away. I find temporary solace in fellow outsiders, but rarely do they share my situation. It seems to be one or the other. And on I go, ploughing on through life, constantly wondering why and constantly wondering if this is how it’s always going to be.
Anon.
I called this article Auntie as my mum, probably like a lot of people, had an Aunt who never married and never had children -she was just known as “Auntie”. They were the spinsters of the world, the outsiders, the pitied. This article is for them and to acknowledge that they probably never had the opportunity to express the pain and grief they no doubt suffered like we can on amazing websites like this. So thank you Steph and team.