Deadline thoughts!

These are the thoughts of a perfectly sane – wait, no!
I can‘t say that about myself anymore.
But perfectly reasonable thoughts of a women – and my witch rolls her eyes at me.
Yes, let‘s stick with person with a uterus, to not even try to hide our struggle.
„And reasonable?“, Layla mocks me. „What about this is ever reasonable?“

Okay, well then.

„Perfectly unreasonable thoughts of a not so sane uterus carrying being at their 28th birthday?“

Or, deadline thoughts.
I will call this ramblings deadline thoughts!

„No, no! I am 20 and just moved here.“
The piece of cake I am cutting has become much bigger than anticipated.
My witch starts to giggle into her cup of coffee with pink whipped cream on the top, because why not.
„I live in a very small one room apartment, am so fucking curious about making new friends, and have not yet taken much too long to finish my degree because of my fucking anxiety .“

I have not enjoyed a birthday ever since I outlived my twenty-third one, I think.
Birthdays in general make me nervous, because they are like a deadline, but I can‘t help the thought that as a person with a uterus, certain deadlines are a much more painful experience.

„It‘s not like no one ever wanted to marry you“, my witch reminds me and I make a face.
Yes, that was definitely never the problem. Only, who wanted to marry me.
„So, you‘re an old single lady because you attract assholes“, my witch giggles on. „Back in my day, we could even be lucky enough to find someone nice and still die before there ever was a chance to be together, or before we could afford it.“
„Afford it?“
„To get your girls accepted into other families costs so much“, Layla went on. „And once she starts popping babies, they all need food and shit. So many unlucky people died a virgin for just this reason. What a waste.“
And she giggles.
God, the 17th century sucked.

I want to leave her this absurdly tragic moment, and retreat to my own thoughts.
My problem was neither that I was not married yet, nor that I had no children yet.
It was that it was such a big issue.

When I turned 25, my mother for the first time ever reminded me of my biological clock.
And I was brutally surprised by that.
I had not yet thought about my life like that.
I had had recently ended an affair with a much older man, had almost started dating a girl and an old friend far, far away, and was suddenly stuck in lockdown. Job-wise I was still in a searching process whatever I could want in life, and honestly, I felt very young and healthy.
Too young and healthy to be reminded of my biological clock, at all!

And so, recently I have looked into it.
This idea of women over 35 withering away like flowers never watered – and it‘s fucking bullshit!
Thankfully, my search for this was not very difficult, since this issue was discussed in public to a certain degree in recent years.
To sum it all up: the study suggesting that your likelihood of becoming pregnant over 35 decreasing more than 60% is several hundred years old and does not include living circumstances of the women, such as having a husband at war or being a widow or having had a few difficult births already and no modern medical care available.

So, this number is bullshit. Until Menopause starts, you are still at a high risk of getting pregnant. Women over 35 still have hormones, still have periods and have a very high chance (or risk) of birthing healthy babies!

„Am I even still alive at 35?“, my witch interrupts my thoughts, hinting at the novel draft open on my desk, and I close it, before she can take a look.
„Would be a nice change“, she would add, playful but still intense.

Yes, having women 35 and older still pictured as complex human beings with struggles and needs and own opinions would be a nice change, for sure. I have so many women giving up at a much younger age.
I have friends that married in their early or mid twenties. They very soon became parents, and the young mothers have enjoyed lecturing me.
About how they did not need anything anymore.
No friends without children, no hobbies, no taste in music or books … and the list goes on.
And when I asked my own mother about it, she also admitted that she gave up her hobbies and volunteering work at the age of 28, in preparations for pregnancy.

And I don‘t want to do this.

I even think that women celebrating transition into marriage and motherhood like that are doing great damage to the presentation for women in general. They are a threat to my basic human rights, my right as a person.

This may sound extreme, but let me explain.

I will start with the fact that I as well want to have a baby at some point.
But much later.
I want to also establish a career for me to pursuit.
I want to make it as a writer.
I want to be there for my friends.
I still want to live in polyamory, to be honest.
I am convinced that a person is so complex and made of so many things that not one single thing can define us.

At some point I want to be a mother, but I am also me.
A teacher, a writer, a lover, a friend.
And one aspect of me would be motherhood, while the others matter as well.
I still want to be curious about a new album of my favorite band when I am 40, 50, 60! I want to still read new books, travel the world, hang out with friends, sometimes even have a drink.

I don‘t want to be buried alive.

And my experience, and yes, these are my personal experiences made by a woman with Polish roots living in Germany, show me how much a person with a uterus still has to fight for these things.

It‘s so easy to just stop existing as a person at the age of 25, and transition into this image of the holy mother, this holy-Mary-image of a selfless, caring angel … covered in other people‘s shit (metaphorically as well as actually), and I don‘t want that.

Also for other uterus-carying beings.
I think that girls should be taught more self-respect for that matter.
Self-respect and courage to be anything else than a mother. Or, in addition to being a mother.
Maybe some of my readers see this as a given, and if so, I am glad.
But I have spent 28 years of my life in a world in which this did not seem as a given, and in which I still feel the need to fight for this.

For being a uterus-carrying being that has many different aspects if self, and struggles and needs, besides or in addition to the potential of motherhood.

„But remember that whatever you do, no search for survival can ever be as wild as mine“, Layla whispers and eats a big spoon full of pink whipped cream, and I once again grant her that.
I will never struggle as much as her having fallen out of grace in 1622.
Still, we seem to battle the same structures that developed early in the modern world.