amiss conceptions

"I used to want a pulse AND a brain. But these be lean times..."
-fuzzy houndstooth, on love

My self-love fantasies these days are heavy on women from my past. It always starts with a real memory, that morphs into a fiction wherein we give in to desire completely, and in the ensuing carnal cornucopias, i give these women the best sex of their lives and intentionally, mutually, blissfully impregnate them.
Paging Dr. freud! Midlife crisis, aisle 2??
No. "Culture crisis" would be more accurate.
With these women, i can point to any number of reasons why getting in "the family way" would have been ill-advised, either in terms of compatibility, or as a measure of what was best for my life (and the creativity i have to offer the world). Unless you're rich, or a male who knocks up an "old-fashioned" woman, or you stumble into some "alternative family", you can't have it all. Man or woman, you can't. Don't let anyone suggest otherwise. The two-parent paradigm will consume your life - and that's just if you're willing to do it badly.
For a window into this reality, try watching an episode of AMERICA'S FUNNIEST HOME VIDEOS, imagining that you're the parent of any child shown. It's of course easy to laugh at kids' shenanigans, and much of AFV's humor is founded on the principle "it's funny if it's not happening to YOU"...but go deeper. You're seeing just one ten-second slice of the 24-hour need machine that is a child. Now imagine it's your child who has left a trail of chocolate syrup through three carpeted rooms (and a staircase). Or that it's your ceiling fixture a would-be orangutan has brought crashing to the floor. Or that your home now has a ten-foot wall of spreading foam, courtesy of a moppet ill-prepared for washing machine technology. How long does it take for that moment to become less than funny, if it's your home and your foam? So much for any hope you had of putting in an hour today working on your novel, or getting frisky with the old ball and chain...
And this thought leads to another - parenting is at once adulthood's most crushing burden, yet perhaps simultaneously life's most encompassing escape from growing up. Your life becomes so invested in the realities of childhood, that to a significant extent your perspectives return to that infantile state. How many parents can recite numerous children's books from memory, but haven't read a serious book in years? Two-parent child-rearing almost forces a parent to abandon their own personal growth, and shelve serious consideration of the world's problems. I'm convinced that for many, there's a subconscious level in which having children is about reality-avoidance. How's that for an upside down thought? Tasty irony? A whole new angle on the peter pan complex?
Anyway...these impregnation fantasies have been so strong that they've even spread into real life. I have a friend in China, and i've suggested to her (somehow both playfully and seriously) that i'd give her american citizenship and babies. Perhaps this doesn't quite count as my first bona fide procreative proposal, as she's given almost no evidence that she could or even would take me up on that. But it's noteworthy, as i've never talked babies with any woman. Not ever, not even kiddingly.
What does all this mean?
It means that i'm so lonely my teeth hurt.
No news there...we live in a culture of almost seamless alienation. The only people not crying themselves to sleep every night are the ones who have sailed their little raft onto Denial River.
But as the isolating weight of decades living in this world settles upon me, my subconscious searches for any way out. If i were more promiscuous, i might have already gotten into some domestic entanglement these past few years - i've been positively reckless (for me). Unprotected first date sex? Yup. Just once, of course.
So far.
Yet why WOULDN'T i have impregnation dreams? On the other side of that door, there's an endless supply of free sex (um, in theory), plus getting to hold and love a baby every single day. Sign me up! I'll take two!! Mommies, i mean. Or babies. Whatever.
Have i ever told you how much i love children? And vice versa. Any time i've been in some group or endeavor that had children, they would be drawn to me like magical huggy-magnets. I've always known how to talk to children (the first realization of how rare this talent is, is one of life's more frightening moments). One woman made the choice to be my lover, only after watching me with kids. Some even call my childless state tragic - if i had a hug for everyone who's said i'd be an amazing parent, my endorphins would be set for a year. I firmly believe that one of the keys to health is holding a child at least once a day. There are moments when you realize that this society sometimes punishes one for NOT being an idiot.
Sigh.
I want babies!
Just not (and i can't overemphasize this) 24 hours a day for eighteen years.
I was even starting to worry that these impregnation memory flights might be taking over my fantasies entirely...but happily, i've met one or two women who've nixed that concern. Not only do i fantasize about them, there's nary a fetus in sight.
Well...
Except for a couple other female acquaintances i'm actively impregnating in my mind.
So there it is. The recklessness lurking in the shallows.
Somebody rescue me, before i trash one of the few singular lives you'll ever know!
But nobody gets rescued in this world. We've now initiated women into this horrible reality. Not long ago, we encouraged half of humanity to dream of nothing more than being "rescued", then placed into their very own doll house (where they could have their own little baby dolls). The reality was disturbingly less idyllic, but at least there was some comfort in knowing that your needs would be taken care of and you wouldn't have to figure out life.
Now, not even women have those illusions.
And it's only right they were thus freed.
But welcome, sweet sisters, to reality in a me-centered world.* You're on your own. Take care of yourself, for no one else will.
And the love you need?
Fight for it. Scrape for it. Be worthy (and society will be only too happy to instruct you in just what "worthy" looks and thinks like).
If all that comes easy to you today...
Leaner days are coming.
Rescue is not.
Nobody offers you love, simply because you need it.
We're alone.
If you're not nodding your head, your self-delusion serves you well.
In a world of unfeeling barbarism, who wants to know so much?

*The female shift from a he-centered world to a me-centered world is another subject that calls for rumination.

(for a follow-up, read http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2014/11/amiss-leftovers.html)