At odds

During high school, I was adament that I would not have children. Not because I didn't like them, but I guess because I really didn't date. I just didn't see myself having the opportunity of being a mother, so I disguised it as a desire and choice to be childless. Then, I went to New Jersey for three summers. Things were different there. I wasn't terribly different, but I didn't have any baggage. Nobody knew who I was, so I felt a little more free, a little less poor, a little more brave. Hell, I was even asked out on a couple of dates! I started to think about things from a new perspective.

I worked in kiddie land for the entire first summer. I came to love, love, love the kids. Don't get me wrong. I had always liked kids well enough, but there is something about watching a kid drive her first bumper car or ride his first ferris wheel. These faces are simply a reflection of pure joy. They are what happiness looks like. I knew at the end of that summer that I wanted to be a mom; I wanted to raise kids.

When Bub and I got together, I made it very clear that I wanted to start a family and if she didn't want to be part of the plan that we should end it all before it really got started. Ah-ha - a problem!

Bubba NEVER wanted to have kids. It just wasn't who she was. She came of age in a city where the burgeoning lesbian scene consisted of butch/femme couples where, sadly, the femmes were likely to be straight and experimenting. The bar was the ONLY place to meet other lesbians, and partying hard was business-as-usual. A lesbian's network of friends often constituted her family, too. Bub was happy in this world. Why disrupt something that is working just fine?

But, we both really wanted to give our relationship a shot. Somehow, we both knew that there was something special between us that could grow into a love so big that it would be hard to contain. Thankfully, we were right.

Now, about those kids........