Kids

Earlier tonight, on the way home from work my assistant manager asked me if me if I want to have kids. She had been talking about her kids, about how they're almost all grownup and she feels old (she was joking about this).

Do I want to have kids? Do I want to watch them grow up? Do I want to kiss their booboos and kiss them good night? Do I want to teach them to love the world and everyone in it? Do I want to ... Well if you haven't guessed by now the answer is yes. Yes and yes and yes.

Am I likely to ever have kids? Well, no. Unless I adopt I'm not going to be a parent. Why? Because due to hrt I'm most likely to be sterile in the near future. Pruning this path from my life was not an easy decision. When I was weighing the pros and cons of hrt this was one of the biggest cons for me. But in the end I saw that it was a mostly dead branch. It was a hard decision that I've mostly made peace with. I'm not saying that it doesn't hurt from time to time.

Living with my sister and her kids has been both a salve and irritant to this psychic wound. I've had the opportunity to be something like a parent to them from time to time. I get little moments, where I get a glimpse of parenthood. Sometimes I think, "I can't wait to do this with my kids.." and then I remember how unlikely that is and I hurt.

When my assistant manager asked me the answer that came to mind was, "Yes but I probably won't be able to." What I said was, "Maybe," cause it hurts more to admit it.