Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “apparent/a parent.” Use either one or both. You choose. Enjoy!

My niece, Imogen and me

I’m not a parent and although I could say that on the whole my life has turned out pretty well and I’ve reached a stage where I can look back and feel happy about what I’ve achieved and the life choices I’ve made, one regret I can admit to is not having had children.I’ve always had maternal instincts. When I was younger I figured that having children would be something that would naturally happen when I got older, but when I had a real chance to settle down with someone wonderful that I loved (way back at the tender age of 22), I simply wasn’t ready. I was still restless and felt I had a whole life to live till I was.

When I reached 30 I went travelling for a year in Australia and the other day I found an old diary with a list of my future children’s names scrawled in red pen at the back that I’d compiled while sunbathing on a catamaran in the Whitsunday islands. At that time I still believed I’d have children, and in the years that followed, I dated (a lot), partly because I was panicking that I was running out of time. But I realise looking back, that I wasn’t terribly happy. I was dating compulsively and for the wrong reasons, and it was only once I reached 40 that I started to relax a little. I had nieces and nephews by then & I was tutoring children so that in part went some way to relieving my maternal instinct. I now have a cat and that helps further!

I will always want children but I think it’s just one of those things that I have to learn to live with. I manage to deal with it by focusing on other things that are important to me such as writing and friendships. I suppose I could have settled down with several different people in the past but it simply didn’t feel right at that time and that feeling of ‘rightness’ is what has always guided me in life and will continue to do so.

This was my post for SoCS