Birthday

My birthday is coming up, but I'm not going to tell you how old I am. And I'm not at all ashamed about that.

I believe in the axiom that your only as old as you feel. So why should I let somebody pin me wriggling to the wall.

Instead, I want to talk about the assumptions that people make.

I can't talk to other women my age - thought I might say it, didn't you? - without one of them asking me if I have children.

When I say "no," they shake their heads and their eyes grow large with sympathy: "You still have time."

If I'm in a good mood, I explain patiently that I don't think it's going to happen for me. At this point, I'm actually hoping to end the conversation.

But some women won't quit.

They want to know whether I've tried using a calendar to track my ovulation. Some tell me about their sister or best friend who decided later in life that she wanted children and went through fertility treatment. I try to explain that I just don't think it would fit in my life.

Then I look around my once smoke-filled Upper East Side coffee shop at the clatches of cooing mothers chatting about nursery schools and sipping on red wine while their infants wriggle in their Babybjorns.

Most of these women do not want to hear that I truly do not want children, and I can tell by their faces that they do not believe it.

That's why more and more often I just say, "No, I don't have kids" and leave it at that. Then, I wait for their eyes to widen.


Peace