Okay, Question

My Christmas thought for the day:



What the hell is the deal with all these "nanny" shows? So now we need television to tell us how to raise our children? This is just a scary, scary thought.



Or is this more feminist backlash--"see, if you stayed HOME with your children, they wouldn't be such irredeemable heathens--but since you've chosen your CAREER..."



I had a conversation with my mom tonight on the ride home, prompted I guess by the presence of a couple of babies at our Christmas dinner, in which I explained to her the reasons she won't be getting any grandchildren. I'm too much of a cynic; I couldn't muster the comforting little warm-fuzzies necessary to raise well-adjusted human beings. I can't forget what I know. I can't pretend to believe in happily-ever-after, or even happily-for-more-than-a-few-minutes-ever-after. In short: I'm not having kids because I wouldn't be very good at it, and unlike quilting or golfing or skeet-shooting, if you're not good at parenting you can't just quit; if you're not good at parenting you leave generations of wreckage ever after.



"I never gave it a second thought," my mother said.



"Most people don't, I think," I told her.



For some reason, this has been one of the harder Christmases in recent memory. I am miserable in my own skin; I think I need to do something about my body because it's really, for the first time I can remember, actually making me feel bad about the rest of me. I see pictures of myself and I'm pretty much disgusted with what looks back at me. Even when I make an effort to look good, I don't look good--I look "good for ME."



Another big part of it is this: I have done nothing this year. Nothing. I've gotten up every day, gone to work, come home, gone to bed, and started over. On the weekends--I've done nothing. I am living only enough to keep living. I can even count on my fingers the number of times I've had sex in the past 365 days. And if I didn't remember a time when it was different--when I was different, when my life was different--I don't suppose it would bother me. But I do remember a time like that--and it's not something I can get back, even though it's the only thing I really want.



I'm giving my life as it stands another six months--there are some things coming up after the new year that may improve conditions, or may make them worse--but if it gets to be late May or early June and nothing has changed, I'm going to take drastic action--quit my job, maybe, just for a start. I see that as the major stumbling block in my life right now--though there are others in close second--and it's going to be the first thing to go, no matter what I have to do to get there.



I have other plans, of course--I'm a great one for plans, though weak on executions--and I will be working on them in the interim--but I will not live another year like this one. I can handle the mundane parts of life, but not when that's all there is.