No, Thank God

 Today I said "No, thank god," when asked if I had kids. I didn't even think about it. It just popped out of my mouth.

A week after a long session with my therapist talking about if I want kids or not. 

Talking in circles about life choices and regret. 

I still don't know how I feel about becoming a mother. 

And today as I was washing my face and thinking about all the ways I've grown and learned this year and all the years before, I thought, 

"I'm so glad I'm not a mom right now."

And that was it. 

That's how I feel right now. 

That doesn't mean the feeling won't change. But I'm still growing into myself. I'm still learning new things. I'm still experimenting. I'm not ready to give all that up to be a Mom, but I also need to get over my desire to lockdown an answer. 

Life is ambiguous. 

I'm trying to put this decision up on a shelf and out of my head for a few years. I'm not ready yet. Maybe I'll never be ready. Maybe it's okay to not know and just keep living my life. 

In my very early twenties, I posted something about your twenties being your selfish years. I'm so thankful for these years of growth and development for myself. Only in a world in which we villanize a woman who chooses herself over the "selflessness" of motherhood would call those years selfish. 

I can't imagine giving up how much I've changed in order to be a mother. Maybe the woman I'll be in ten years will feel the exact same way. Maybe she will be so thankful and amazed at the extra ten years of growth and development she got all because I decided not to become a mother at this point in time. When I wasn't ready.

Saying not now isn't saying not ever. I don't have the same peace of mind or clarity about motherhood as most other women around me, whether for or against. 

I have a vague sense of maybeness that is quilted in not now, not yet, I'm not done figuring out me yet.