‘You don’t need a man these days, just go to the sperm bank’. Is the advice my mother imparted onto me in a desperate last-ditch effort to obtain Grandchildren from at least one of her offspring. Bless her, she has been fairly patient over the years, possibly thinking ‘it’s ok, surely this one will be the one to sweep my daughter off her feet, marry her and swiftly impregnate her’. Only to watch on in abject horror as relationships fall like wounded soldiers in battle, one after the other. Now, she has descended into a dark place. A place of pure unfiltered desperation in which it does not matter that the life advice she is bestowing upon me is complete and utter poppycock, as long as she convinces me to fertilise those dwindling eggs and provide little Nicole’s for her to shower with Grandmotherly love.
And before you start to think ill of me for casting the spotlight on my wonderful Mother, I’m not finished. Oh no, she is not the only one by a long shot. It comes from every direction. From an old school acquaintance you haven’t spoken to in eleventy billion years (judge away asshole), to a stranger at a wedding with the social etiquette of an amoeba who thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to ask you deeply personal questions then nod sympathetically and pat you on the head like a lost puppy, your weird Uncle that you only see once a year and has been married more times than you can count on two hands and miraculously, your Nanna who can’t even remember what day it is half the time, yet never fails to remind you that you have failed to fulfil your duty as a woman. She even manages to remember the name of your very first boyfriend from when you were 18 and repeat wistfully ‘he was a lovely boy, why didn’t you marry him?’…..’Because you mad old coot, I was 18 and could barely manage to wipe my own arse independently let alone make the educated decision to enter into holy matrimony for the rest of my life FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!’.
I helped organise a dinner with my family and my boyfriend’s family over Easter weekend, because I love my family and I love my boyfriend’s family and I thought it would be nice. When my Mum phoned me and asked whether I was also ‘requesting my brother’s presence’, I thought this a bit strange but I didn’t dwell on it and just replied with a ‘yes, I would like him to be there’. When we sat down for dinner, someone jokingly asked if anyone wanted to make a speech, and when silence ensued, it was immediately followed by a disappointed squark from my mother saying ‘Oh I thought there might have been an announcement’, followed by a few titters of agreement. Jesus H. Christ. The realisation dawned on me that everyone suspected that we’d organised a dinner because we had some news. Sorry guys, the only news I’ve got is that we managed to successfully roofie ourselves on Martinis the night before and that we barely managed to dress ourselves that day. Everyone moved swiftly on from there until my brother who was about 5 beers deep decided to declare (completely unprompted like some form of hideous Tourette’s) that I was quote desperate for a baby unquote. The room descended into a silence so acute that if you tried really hard, you could have heard my uterus shrivelling up and turning to dust. Realising there was nothing I could do to save the situation, I just sat there like a stunned mullet hoping against hope that one day a time machine would be invented so I could travel back and erase this moment, saving myself and my dusty uterus from the tragic humiliation. Boyfriend has not mentioned it since, so either my time-machine prayers were answered or the selective hearing only possessed by a man kicked in and he managed to remain safely in his happy place swigging away on his beer.
So that’s a snapshot of the pressure cooker that is life as an unmarried, childless 34 year old woman. For those of you who are wondering (MUM), yes I do want to get married and have children, but when the time is right. For now I am going to enjoy, well, being able to do whatever the fuck I like!!
Nic xx
P.S. I love you really Mum.