Retreat A'hoy

We leave for our retreat on Wednesday morning. The primary goal of this retreat is to discuss our future, our future with a capital F, future. Future means jobs, commitment ceremony, family, houses, school, etc.

I am 35 and if I want to bear a child I need to hurry up. There is no doubt in my mind that I want to be a parent, I have been clear on that for a long time. What I have not been clear on is the idea of being the biological mother.

I am a tomboy...still, even at 35. I have been tomboy through and through my whole life. My favorite Christmas ever I got a wheel barrow, a drum kit and a giant tractor. I have always climbed trees, played sports, ridden bikes, and had short hair (and for the brief times when my hair was long, I was absolutely miserable). I've been called sir more times than I care to remember. I even got beat up once because a neigborhood bully thought I was a boy and since it was ok to beat up boys, he kicked the crap out of me.

I have never wanted to be a boy, the closest I came was wishing for some intersexed blend of boy and girl where I would have male anatomy on top and female anatomy on bottom (this to assure that breasts would never grow and then proceed to get in my way when I was playing ball). I was so angry on my 13th birthday and the corollary approach of puberty, I threw a fit at the receipt of pantyhose from my grandmother. For me, 13 symbolized the death of freedom and the onset of a life filled with make-up, heels and bodily changes of which I wanted no part.

Somehow I made it through 13 and high school and then college and in the midst of all the gender confusion I found myself comfortable in a lesbian identity. Now, as I am getting ever closer to that scary word "middle aged," and I have a wonderful partner and am thinking about starting a family, I am coming ever closer that dreaded decision. To carry or not.

And thus, this journey begins...