GREAT GUILT

I usually like my posts to be about topics other than myself. But tonight...well... it's a little different.

I have PMS...

...and a computer.

I'm not going to go into detail about what recently occurred in my personal life. The only thing I'll say is that I suffered a great loss. A loss of love, if you will. I had a one in a million chance of being a wife and (someday) mother. I had the chance to make a house a home, to plant a garden, to own a dog and to have picnics in the woods on my very own property with my "husband."

This, however, was an opportunity which passed me by for a multitude of reasons. Simply put: Unnecessary circumstances beyond my control forced me to bring myself back to square one, which is a very lonely (and sometimes) dangerous place - especially when you have an overly analytical mind such as I.

Now I'm left feeling guilty. Guilty for going with the gut... and guilty for having the right to do just that.

I especially feel for women generations before me (and even now) who struggled to put food on the table and keep their families together, all while raising a couple small children at a time. I think of my maternal-great-italian-immigrant-grandmother who started having kids when she was a teenager and kept going until there were 14 of them (12 actually... 2 died). She worked from dawn til dusk raising those kids and barely spoke a word of English.

I have great respect for women like this. Women who hold it all together under the pressure of soccer games, PTA meetings and daycare. But I also have great guilt for not contributing to such a natural aspect of society. I feel as though I am not fulfilling my greater purpose as a woman and reproductive vessel. I suppose God skipped me when he was passing out the "domestic chip." (Seriously, I'm not exaggerating - I can't even keep a plant alive).

I think of women who never had an education; who can barely read. Women who don't know what it means to kick back on the couch after a long day at the office and watch the cable that they know they paid for with their own money. I feel great guilt for being sad when there is so much more I could be unhappy about - like not even having the ability or opportunity to acquire a job and pay my own bills.

I remember the women I've known (or do know) who have found their soul mates; who have found that one perfect person - for them- to share their whole world with. I feel great guilt for envying these women every day.

I look at my parents. They're young in spirit, but in about 20 years, I'll be middle aged and they'll be old in body (sorry guys). It makes me tear up a little bit when I think of them never being able to hold a grandchild bore by me, never being able to see me get married and always having to help me pick up the pieces every time my heart gets shattered by yet another failed romance. I feel great guilt for putting my parents through so much and not even giving them the opportunity to see that they did such a great job with me.

But you know what?

The most amazing thing about all this stuff.... feeling guilty and sorry for yourself, I mean... is that you begin to get tired of it eventually.

And right now...right this minute...I'm tired of feeling bad. So I'm going to have some hot chocolate, enjoy my evening and watch a movie based on the life of Jane Austen (Becoming Jane, starring Anne Hathaway...I'll let you know how it is).

Maybe tomorrow I'll feel better about feeling bad.

Then again, maybe not.

Either way, our time here is short. And by wasting one even more minute of my free time on this "great guilt," I'd be doing a great disservice to those women who don't even have one spare second.