So, in spite of my very best efforts and stilettos, even while dating, I’d been as single as a wrapped tampon. Except, for the past year and a half, I was better classified as not exactly single-single. I would have to admit; it took me a while to get centered on what seemed to be more of the right type of dating track for my type of goals. When I started dating, I bee-lined for the boys with hot bodies, actor dreams and table-waiting futures. Coming back to LA from grad school, I realized that I should probably find another responsible “adult” with whom I could at least pretend to build a future. What I got was a doctor who was too busy for me, an artist manager from the music industry who wined and dined me for a month and then ghosted me, and a seemingly mature single dad in his late 30’s who gave me the key to his apartment on our second date and then asked for it back when his mother came to visit two months later. Then, of course in-between, there were the “deceptives” and “time wasters,” who wanted extensive emotional relationships, but in the end only wanted to be friends. LA guys were a special breed, and not just because people came to chase after neon-vivid dreams of wealth and fame. So, when I met Marc, who seemed in every way an educated, handsome professional guy with a healthy amount of swagger and decency, I wasn’t trying to stray too far to the left or the right. At the beginning, I felt lucky, but as time progressed, lucky turned into love, for the both of us, in spite of our schedules. Even when my visibility at the news station started to increase, and I got a lot of offers and attention to make up for the time away from me that Marc spent working, I ignored them, because they weren’t men of Marc’s caliber. Plus, he had my heart. He made me smile, and laugh and when we were together, I felt like the most beautiful and sexiest woman for ten miles. He just had that way about him, that same way that made me feel so lucky in the beginning. Our relationship had long-term potential, although with a heavy emphasis on potential. It wasn’t lost on me that we still only spent weekends together and I hadn’t met his family or shared a holiday. Yes, I knew that I didn’t have forever, but I thought I was doing the right thing—find the right guy, and then give him the time and space he needed to make some moves toward a future together. In the year and a half that we’d been dating, he never once brought up marriage, so I didn’t either. And neither one of us brought up the topic of kids, other than at first to discuss birth control measures. He’d sometimes acknowledge that someday they would be very nice to have, and I’d agree but never push, no matter how badly I wanted to. Knowing that Marc wanted to be a father was enough for my checklist. I thought that I could just wait him out until we got to the right place in our relationship. I just always was so sure that there was time. Today, the shock was still settling in my stomach that there was not. The doctor told me that all I had was six months, at best.
I hit my palms against my steering wheel in frustration, thinking of all the amount of diligence spent not get pregnant, only to find myself in a situation that when I’d hope to be able to, I possibly couldn’t. Ugh! The idea of the clock running out on my fertility felt like every bad date, every tough breakup and every guy that I turned down in high school had all turned into big, permanent cracks in my life’s sidewalk. I hated the idea that maybe these people had taken something from me that I could never get back. Dr. Ellis said, “options,” but I couldn’t help but to think, what really were my options? Up to then, the only options I’d been concerned with were the stories that I’d pitch in the newsroom, restaurants for dates with Marc and maybe my dream of which little house I’d buy. Now, my newsroom pitches would become do-or-die opportunities to get my next promotion, dates with Marc would turn into critical conversations and my little house evaporated into an expensive egg freezing procedure that I couldn’t even afford. But this car ride from the doctor’s office was no good time to get started on that. I was already late for work and frazzled.
In between weaving through Los Angeles traffic, what I really needed to do was steal the time at red lights to repurpose my visor as a makeshift vanity and slap a barebones makeup “beat” on my face. It was a special trick controlling a steering wheel with one hand and contouring with the other, especially since my hand was still shaking. My reflection looked back at me with a grimace. This day, I was definitely without my usual “pretty.” I was a television reporter and yet not a “classic” beauty. So, success for me meant there was the 50% premium on standards to meet, my hair to straighten, and masks of makeup and appropriateness to wear over my brown skin. I managed it all with the composure that you’d expect of a professional, and most of the time, without a second thought. Was this stressful? The need to conform to a standard that I couldn’t naturally meet? Well, today it was. Today, my mind let well-settled ideas unspool themselves from my usual tightly-wound spindle of coping. Today was the first time in a long time that my appearance felt like a burden that I wanted to just let go of. Even as I fought to resume my makeup routine, my mind perched on the verge of becoming an unraveled mess, struggling to find order in the loosely connected thoughts plucked from forgotten memories and the life plans that might no longer apply.
At a time like this, I wanted to call my mother. Well, I wanted to be able to, but the kind of empathy that this situation required was not in her wheelhouse. I was supposed to deliver grandbabies, not one, at least two and she always told me that she was hoping for three, so that she’d always have a little one to shop for. My mom talked about grandkids all the time, even though she lived on the full other side of the continent in Washington, DC. This conversation was her version of an Outlook reminder for a recurring meeting or appointment. We’d speak on the phone about all things unrelated, catching up on life in our respective worlds, and suddenly, like a ping, the topic would pop up and insert itself into polite conversation like, “so how are things going with Marc and when can I expect to meet my grandchildren?” It didn’t help that I was an only child, at least on my mother’s side, so her only hope of being a grandmother. And I guess all along, I felt like I somehow owed her that. It was her idea of becoming, the next step of her own plan after my father left us for Diane. My idea of family didn’t come from wanting to become someone new; my idea came from wanting to go back to who I used to be. Crap. The robotic voice warned me of a traffic slowdown on my route and I was still twenty minutes out from work according to the navigation ETA. I was close enough to take a shortcut through my old neighborhood and save myself at least 5 minutes on the way to the station. I decided to take the turnoff.
I last lived here, in View Park, with my parents. It was a neighborhood of black professionals set off on the southwest side of Los Angeles. We weren’t living large, but we were living “black folks” fancy. This wasn’t all the way ritzy, like the really rich entertainment-types in Bel Air and Malibu, but was especially comfortable. I remember that. Even more than the LA mega-mansions and the Hollywood Hills contemporary showplaces, these were still the kinds of homes I dreamed about most often. Most were ranch layouts, of varying sizes from small to spread out as far as what seemed like a full block. Lawns were always immaculately manicured and palm trees lined most of the streets, some of which gave the perfect view all the way to downtown. We owned our own home with a palm tree and a lemon tree out front, and I had my own room. I hated the color, but my mother picked out what it was supposed to be—a pale sickening pink “for princesses.” I thought it looked like Pepto Bismol. I certainly didn’t think of myself as a princess growing up—sometimes, I thought of myself as a teacher, or a doctor, someone with a career—who put both feet on the ground every morning, got dressed, and fought her own battles. My mom learned her fairytales from her mother and Walt Disney, but I learned mine from Oprah on TV.