I Am So Popular: It's a Boy!

Speaking of shitty quilts, remember that one I made you for your sixteenth birthday? The lopsided, asymmetrical number that featured an appliquéd chicken pocket? Remember I tucked a real letter into that pocket, a real letter I had written to you and for your eyes only? I think it was about 40,000 words long—a mere note by my standards but you plucked it out, took one look at the length of it, and decided to “save it for later.” Whatever the hell happened to that letter?

The reason I’m writing today, besides the fact that I am on deadline to produce something for my column, is that it is your birthday. NINETEEN years old! I swear, that was the fastest nineteen years of my life. I suppose it was the fastest nineteen years of your life, too, though perhaps faster nineteen-year intervals await you. Often this time of year prompts me to reflect upon my parenting. Unfortunately, I can vividly remember a lot of the fuck ups. Like the time I told you that you missed Christmas. What were you? Three? I guess I didn’t realize then that you didn’t understand my intended literary device—humor/sarcasm. Good lord that was stupid. I’m still so sorry about that.

Before I turn this into a laundry list of my failings (the yelling, the drinking, the ridiculous string of terrible boyfriends/husbands—sorry, sorry, sorry) let’s switch the topic. As I promised you, I will not—as I am so fond of doing—ask you (even jokingly) as I have for the past eighteen birthdays, if we can go over your birth story again. You know how I like to lie down on the floor and tell you about how you nearly died during your super-botched home birth? And how one ambulance came and then another one and then some cops showed up and I didn’t know if you were alive or dead? And then how I farted really loud and out shot your placenta, scaring the shit out of those uniformed workers? Well this year, you’re off the hook. I’m going to spare you. We’ll talk about something else at dinner.

Wait—have I apologized enough for the bad boyfriends and, especially, the shitty husbands? God I am so sorry about that, honey. I want to say What was I thinking? But actually, courtesy of a lot of therapy, which I should’ve gotten a lot sooner, I can actually answer that. So if you ever want to know, just ask me and I’ll tell you. (As you can probably guess, it mostly ties back to my dad. Remember him?)

Some people might think it odd, but whenever I do my annual contemplation of your birth, I also think about that abortion I had when you were six. I never think about it with regret. I think about it with irony. Because I like to say that the day I gave birth to you was the shittiest day of my life and the day I had an abortion was the best.

Let me explain. See, when I gave birth to you, hardly anyone was thrilled with the plan. They thought I couldn’t handle it. I felt very alone, and freaked out. And when you came so close to dying at home, I felt judged for having a home birth. I also felt… gosh I can’t even put my finger on it. But we didn’t have insurance and so your stay in neonatal intensive care had to be paid for by Medicare and that felt weird even though part of the reason I had you at home was because the pizza job I was working didn’t come with benefits. Getting paid around six bucks an hour, well, having you at home was a lot cheaper than paying for a hospital birth. (Though please know saving money wasn’t the only reason I did it—I was following the footsteps of a bunch of hippie friends who had just fine home births which, for the record, I still think home births can be totally rocking.)

So that’s what was so shitty about your birth—the terror, the freaked out days that followed, the wondering if you would live, the fucking pessimistic doctor whom I felt was being way too negative about the whole thing, telling me not to get my hopes up.

As for the abortion—well let’s just say that saved you and me both a lifetime of bullshit and grief courtesy of the man I foolishly involved myself with, the one who forgot to tell me he was a Mormon. I know he would’ve spent his family’s fortune wrangling custody from me, and that you and I would be destroyed on account of it. So your birthday is always a reminder to me of how important it is to always make sure that women keep their right to control their bodies. Having babies, or not, is a serious deal. Don’t even get me started on the health care debate and how so many fuckers are trying to hold it up unless abortion is not covered.

This is kind of a bleak birthday letter, isn’t it? I don’t mean it to be. I’m trying to avoid giving you advice, since first of all you wouldn’t want to hear it. And second of all, it’s your life. You need to see what’s out there on your own. That said, I’m always just a text message away, so if you want help with anything, I am so right here for you.

Now let me say that I will never forget when you came home from Montessori preschool and excitedly announced that you knew why there were no more dinosaurs. “Because a giant meat eater crashed into the earth!” And let me say that I have about eighty billion other memories of you—singing onstage with the Polyphonic Spree, marching in all those war protests, dressed as a pilgrim on Thanksgiving, playing naked Wiffle ball in the backyard, and adopting all those animals you left me strapped with (thank you) when you moved away.

I want you to know I am so proud of you. And I want you to know that watching your face today when we gave you the cello was something I’ll never forget. Actually, that’s pretty much the same face you made when we gave you the violin. And the guitar. And the other guitar. And the other guitar. And the piano and the theremin. I am so thrilled that you found your passion early in life, and it is a wonder to watch you eat up each new instrument with an insatiable appetite like that. Please remember—sorry if this sounds like advice—that pursuing your passion (as long as it’s not heroin or goat fucking or something like that) is, in my experience, a really great way to experience this life. True, you might not get health insurance and you might have to eat crappy food or beg the electric company not to turn off the juice. But in the end (well, okay, in the middle—I’m not at the end yet) I have to say I do not regret having chased my own muse for all of these years. It sure has led me to some awesome places.

Thank you so much for being born. It is cliché—another literary thing—but true, that having a child is (or has been for me) the most profound, astonishing, heart lifting, sometimes heartbreaking, mind blowing thing I have ever done. How I got so lucky, I will never know. But you have brought, and continue to bring, so much joy into my life that I am daily astounded.

Love,
Mom

Spike Gillespie adores her son and hopes you'll check out his shows. She blogs for JetBlue's JetAustin, KnitBuzz and, now and then, at spikeg.com.