Family planning. Your partner is your soul mate and best friend. Your children successfully glide through their studies and find a great job. Then straight into grandchildren. Yeah, right. When you’re young, you think starting a family is something you plan. Something you can carefully control. Well, those plans don’t always work out the way we hope or want.
The first time I was thinking about starting a family, I was engaged. It was a magical and exciting time. Young love, total faith and… blissfully blind to signs that were clear to all but me. Apparently an engagement is not always enough reason to be faithful. So when my dream was shattered into a million shiny and sharp pieces – slicing my heart in two – my plans for family-making were put on hold. Dumped in the freezer, stuck in time.
But the cold was soothing, and after a while my heart mended and I did get married. My college friend Suzan and I had once struck a deal: we would start a soccer team together and both have four children. They would be so talented, that only eight were enough for the team. She held her part of the bargain and had three sons and one daughter. I, on the other hand, had to stop after two: my body didn’t agree with my family plans. Plus my sons didn’t care for soccer. 😉 But a family it was.
A divorce and two partners later, again I wonder about my family. What happened to family planning? My eldest son is still at home, but my youngest broke off his education and left the nest to live with his girlfriend. But he did go straight into grandchildren. No engagement or marriage: with his lady, he also got two ready-made children.
So all of a sudden I’m an instant granny. From mother to grandmother in the blink of an eye. I don’t need to change diapers or babysit. England is a bit too far to do that on regular basis, and the kids are already potty trained at the age of nine and six. Family planning, yep.
But you know what? I really don’t care that my life is not going the way I originally planned. Each new experience has made my life richer, stronger. And my sons are happy as they are. They have enough faith to make their own choices in life. And that’s what is most important.
Instant Granny… *shakes her head and wonders*
I wrote this for Writing 101: Unlock the Mind. These prompts do seem to work well, for I had no idea what would flow from my fingers. The assignment: To get started, let’s loosen up. Let’s unlock the mind. Today, take twenty minutes to free write. And don’t think about what you’ll write. Just write. And I did.
Figments of a DuTchess 