To be a mother is praised as a most beautiful thing. The process of birth is lauded as one of the greatest acts to endure. As a woman, it is painted as my most sacred duty to brave and rejoice in this most natural honor. It should be my highlight of existence, my greatest aspiration.
I look upon my nieces with such great love; a warmth that burns in my soul and spills out for all to see. Pride erupts for each small milestone, every new word, small step, and growth of mind. To those I encounter, I am already a mother; caring, compassionate, and overwhelmed with love for these small beings.
But I am not a mother, nor do I want to be. I love from a distance for fear of getting too close, fear of letting such a small being into the war zone in which I live; my body a battleground, my mind a nuclear weapon.
My body has seen many a war. Endometriosis has coursed through my insides, infiltrating the parts that define me as woman. What should one day be a source of life and joy, the cause of crippling, incessant pain. I have seen what lies within through the cameras forced inside to assist in cutting out the growths. The beauty is lost upon seeing the dark marks mutilating the bloody flesh. My ovaries, the home of the building blocks for new life, have become a bane within my body, exploding forth each month. Each detonation releases a torrent of fluid within my abdomen, burning and searing as it oozes through.
My body has been conquered in the war of control. I have been infiltrated despite a desperate battle to get away. Two conquerors have left their marks, claimed my body as their own, with which to do as they please. A lover took what he was denied, a stranger taking what he was never offered. My desolate body always a reminder of the times I lost control, of the many times that I lost the battles.
My mind is a patiently waiting weapon, a bomb itching to explode. A tangle of mental disease, often controlled but never eradicated. Sights unseen lurk behind my lids, waiting to burst forth across my gaze and mine alone. Whispered voices lay in wait to fill the silence for none but me. The depths of my core house a maelstrom of the unknown and uncontrollable, biding the time until all can erupt in a torrent of pain and anger and fear.
The possibility of motherhood is still open to me. The disease that has ravaged my organs, which so often carries a sentence of a barren wasteland, has left my fertility untouched, though I often wish it hadn’t. Infertility would make this much easier. Without a choice, there is no justification, no fight. Were I infertile, there would be no assertions that I will one day change my mind, no claims that I am too young to know.
I am not a mother. I am an aunt, a lover, an activist, a writer, an orator, a friend, a musician, a thinker, and so much more, but I am not a mother. I fill with joy when my three year old niece tells me she missed me before we run off to play tag and color and create with play-doh. Each new word mustered up by her one year old sister evokes a deep pride. Time spent with these beautiful girls can be the highlight of my week, but I am no mother.
A small face looks up into mine telling me she worries about me, such words crushing from a child who defines being a big girl as using the potty. My sister-in-law, only thirteen years old, looks up as I help her with homework, and tells me she hopes I can get better. Physical ill-health had abated. The concern evoked from these beautiful girls was for a mind that was shattering within a seemingly well body.
When my health fails me or my mind crushes in, I can go home and hide away. I can shield these wonderful humans from my pain. They see only the edges that leak through before I can make my escape. As a mother, I would not be able to hide. There would be no escape. My child would see the tears that last for hours, unable to cease, pouring forth from the trauma years past. My child, wanting only to be held, would have to be told no because mommy was in too much pain to safely pick her up. How could I assuage fears of the dark or of monsters in the closet when those fears still have the power to overtake me as the images spill forth across my gaze? How could I chose to raise a child, knowing what she would have to endure?
My body has been a battleground for control, a war that has left many scars. The thought of a being growing within me, outside of my control, incites a panic that wells up from deep within and paralyzes my thoughts and limbs. I have fought too hard to reclaim my body and my life to lose control again. A new life growing within me is not beautiful as I am told it should be, but grotesque- a stretching and warping of the organs that have wrought debilitating pain, a flood of the hormones that exacerbate the demons in my mind.
I am not a mother, nor do I want to be. I am so many other amazing things. I have great ambitions for my life, ambitions that will take all of my limited energy and health. I choose to pursue these dreams. I choose to care for my body and my mind the best I can. I choose to dedicate time and love to the young ones in my life. I choose to not become a mother.
Sabrina Whitenight 