Marriage and Babies Didn’t Happen for Me (Yet)

So I'm making a home in the sky

Home was supposed to look like an adoring husband and three kids. That was always the plan for this point in my life. I’m thirty-four. I’m supposed to be spending my days helping little fingers play their Twinkles on squeaky violins, watching little hands knead bread dough as I make soup nearby, and ruffling curly heads as we snuggle in for a story.

Instead, home is… an airplane seat? I’m in my actual house so little that it doesn’t quite feel like home. Airplane seats are where I get to curl up with a good book. Make to-do lists. Pour out my thoughts and troubles and hopes and dreams onto paper and figure out where I’m going in my life. My real life looks so different than my hopes, so different from my optimistic plans of yesteryear.

There’s been so much loss which has led to this point, so many detours, so many places where I’ve grown brave and strong, but not married or pregnant: an abusive relationship which was hard to leave safely and thus dragged on; aggressive cancers attacking my parents in overlapping intervals; a fiancé I loved dearly and who dearly loved me, but whose calling led him to serve on the opposite end of the earth, in a lifestyle incompatible with my hopes for children. (I yelled at God for a long, long time after that—at the unfairness of bringing me someone I loved so much, yet not providing a path for us to be together.) But in those big losses, and so many smaller ones, there have also been unexpected sources of stability and joy: deep dear friendships, and my job.

I was supposed to work for a few years, save up some money, and then be a stay-at-home mom. That was the plan. Yet, life hasn’t yet brought me motherhood—neither through the usual pathways, nor by dropping off an infant on my doorstep as I sometimes prayed. So I just kept showing up at work.

When I was told by my former boyfriend how stupid and crazy I was, I appreciated that I could go to work and interact with people who conveyed that they thought I was competent and logical. When my parents were sick, I valued my coworkers’ kind words, and their willingness to accommodate my schedule as I flew to see my parents every other weekend. When I was dating my former fiancé, my joy spilled over into to creative research ideas that they helped turn into reality. When my heart was utterly shattered, they put chocolate on my desk with a note that said, “Chocolate can’t fix everything, but it sure does taste good!” gently looked aside when tears crept into my eyes at inopportune moments, and sent me on assignments they knew I’d find interesting.

Since motherhood never intervened, I kept showing up for work. Some days I had to remind myself that I didn’t have to feel happy to be useful; many days I was glad for the distraction of immersing myself in the tasks of the day. And somewhere along the way I realized that I cared—that my job wasn’t just a thing to occupy me before becoming a mother, but something I cared deeply about. I care about these people, I care about the work we do, I even, dare I say it, care about being awesome and getting promoted and being respected as a leader in my field. Work has been my main source of stability in these years, as everything else has changed and ambiguity has been my constant companion. Work has been my shelter—a place of clear guidelines to success, a place with kind people who empathized but also expected me to do my job well, a place where I thrived and kept getting new and bigger opportunities.

And now, as I settle into my plane seat on my way to a meeting that I pinch myself for being so lucky to get to attend, so glad that I get to make an influence in the world in this way, I accept this little bit of “home” for what it is: a different home than I longed for, a different home than I hope I’ll have five years from now, but a good home for now.

Featured Sponsored Content

Please read our comment policy before you comment.

The APW Store is Here

APW Wedding e-shop

go find all our favorites from around the internet, and our free planning tools

Shop Now
APW Wedding e-shop

Planning a wedding?

We have all the planning tools you need right now.

Budget spreadsheets, checklists, and more...

Get Your Free Planning Tools