I don't mean I wouldn't have tried my best or done all the right things. I would have raised my child or children to be creative, thoughtful, loving adults to the best of my ability. It would probably have worked, though genetics can play cruel tricks on anyone. I imagine I would have loved my offspring because everyone says that's generally what happens and I don't suppose I would be any different. But I don't think I would have liked them.

I don't like children. I try never to let this affect my interactions with them but it's true. I don't understand them or find their company interesting. They take an enormous amount of effort which I begrudge. They cost a great deal in time and money, and it's the time I resent. The responsibility for turning them into decent human beings without too many hangups is overwhelming; I never wanted it. Mostly, though, I didn't like being a child and I didn't want to live through childhood a second time. I truly dreaded the thought.

There is nothing I wish I could see through a child's eyes again. Our planet is beautiful, but I don't love what we're doing to it by colonizing it so ruthlessly. I don't want to pass this on. I don't want to think about the future. I don't want to leave a physical mark on the world. I want to get through my own life with grace and pleasure, to bring grace and pleasure to others, and then pass away in my proper time leaving fond memories.

So I was sensible. I took precautions. It's also no accident that I married a man who didn't want children. I have no regrets, though I won't pretend I didn't feel a pang when I realized I had entered the first phase of menopause and my time for choosing had passed. The ticking of my biological clock never bothered me, but knowing it had run down was bittersweet all the same.

Being a mother would have meant caring, a selflessness and devotion to the future that would have taken too high a toll. Perhaps I'm wrong, but there it is. Definitely I'm selfish, but there, again, it is. I suspect motherhood would have depressed me. It would have felt so narrow, so specific. Not for others, perhaps, but I can't see any version of that future where I wouldn't feel angry and resentful about my life. The life I've fashioned for myself is what I wanted most. And yet it's only one of many things that I wanted. It hasn't turned out the way I thought it would.

It occured to me tonight on the train home, you see. I looked at the hilltops rolling by and for a moment my throat tightened with a painful wish to step back in time and see those hills with only trees on the horizon, not houses and telephone wires and satellite dishes. I wanted to look across a wilderness and know there was no one around for a hundred miles. I wanted to stroll along the well-groomed pathways of my elegant estate to the gardens and walk among the neatly tended flowerbeds. I wanted a ranch with acres and acres of land for my horses which I would ride every day, a desert ranch with saguaro sprinkled as thickly as stars. I want so much that isn't possible or conflicts with my actual willingness to work for it, but when I'm done with wanting it I'm not in the least disappointed with what I have. I love it.

That's what I was thinking about while the trees and telephone wires rolled by. There's nothing wrong with desiring ten impossible things as long as when the wishing and wanting are done you're happy to go on with what you've got. If all you do is pine for more without taking chances then you're doomed. If you never desire more than what you have because you're happy that's a blessing. If your life is a burden because no matter what you do nothing goes right that is one of the saddest things I know. And if you don't recognise that what you wanted was all around you all the time, then you're Dorothy and you've got quite a dream ahead of you.

I took chances. I tried for everything I wanted most, and the only surprising part was how often I got it. I did my share of resenting what others had, but I found my own efforts brought me the greatest rewards. If luck exists then I got lucky. I had the opportunity to make what I wanted out of what I was given, and for every door that closed another opened. So I'm an optimist at heart, and a realist without being a cynic. I knew I did not want children so I didn't have them. I knew the way I knew my sexual orientation, the way I recognized all of the great passions of my life: instinctually, unquestionably, no justification or second thoughts necessary.

It is a fine thing to know what and who you are. The great danger is complacency, but a strong will to better yourself will generally take care of that. It puts you in the driver's seat.

I like to drive.

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