Interconnected Lives

Natasha Bricken

Ifthere's one thing I've learned from my life it's to never make a hugelife move before you're really ready for it. The experience thattaught me this lesson was marrying a man ten years older than me whenI was way too young and dumb to realize what I wanted.

Likea lot of girls where I'm from I got married right out of high school.Unlike the other girls, however, I married a man a full decade olderthan me who was already well established. Now, at the time this was agood move to me. Marrying Micheal enabled me to go to college andlive very comfortably without needing to work or worry aboutanything. He was honestly a dream come true, if a little inept in thecommon sense region. He made sure that I never wanted for anything,provided me with anything I could ever want or need, even introducedme to the connections that got me where I am now in my career.

Withouthim my life would have been a massive struggle. I didn't come from awell off family. The only reason I even met Micheal was due to a tempinternship at his company. He was impressed with how hard I wasworking, how intelligent I was, how driven, the care I took in makingthe most out of the temporary position.

Wehad a fast courtship, if you can really call it that. It was maybenine months total before he proposed. My parents were elated. BeforeI even graduated I was basically living with him. He even gave me anew car and took me on a trip to the Bahama's as my graduation gift.

Lifewas good for a long time. I didn't have to worry, didn't need tostruggle. Micheal made life easy. Everything was great. Of courseeverything was like a fairy tale when you married the wealthy prince,but there's a reason those stories ended with 'happily ever after'.No one needed to know that after the dream wedding came real life.Those princesses turned into mothers who ran households and raisedchildren. Maybe this wasn't the most interesting turn of events;certainly no one would want to listen to a story of a sleep deprivedwoman doing her best to feed a baby and keep her home clean whilesimultaneously making sure she looked nice.

Thatwas the part of the story I was ready for though. At twenty-sevenyears old I was done with the fairy tale. Waking up to a spotlesslyclean quiet home every day began to weigh on me, the monotony andstagnation of it growing as the days went by. I watched my sisterraising her own daughter with such envy I could cry.

Forthe entirety of my life until meeting Micheal I had seen my futurelittered with bottles, tiny shoes, toys scattered on the living room floor, bedtime stories, and helping with homework. I wanted to go toparent-teacher conferences, participate in bake sales, watch mybabies perform shitty little elementary school plays while I recordedthem and cried in the audience.

WhenMicheal told me he was infertile I had been crushed, but I loved him.I thought maybe I could accept that I would never have children of myown, that I would need to adopt, but when he explained to me that henever wanted children I couldn't even respond. How could a man hisage not want children? Did he not want a son to carry on his hard-wonbusiness empire? How could he have a fulfilling life withoutanswering that basic biological need?

Despitethat avalanche of a revelation, I decided that I cared more for himthan for my own reproductive needs. I could focus on my careerinstead. My niece would serve as a surrogate child when my instinctsoverwhelmed me. I could get by and live happily without a baby in mylife.

Iwas wrong.

Asthe years ticked by it became more and more obvious that what I triedto stamp down within myself would not be silent forever. It poisonedmy affections for Micheal until I found myself crying every time Isaw another of my friends announcing a pregnancy or birth. My periodevery month sent me into sorrow and depression.

Ittook less time than I'm proud to admit to start cheating. Somethingdeep in my biological nature compelled me towards men who looked evenremotely interested in me. I'd decided that if I became pregnant Iwould tell Micheal that I'd been raped during one of his longbusiness trips away from home and had been so scared and embarrassedthat I didn't report it or even tell him. With a story like that itwould guilt trip him a little bit to make him feel like it wasslightly his fault for leaving me alone in the first place.