Cat Skinner Club

No More Clamato Before Bed

Picture 1

Last night I had a dream about a baby. A fat-cheeked, red-headed baby girl that was mine. Except I wasn’t convinced that she was real. I kept seeing her when I was alone, but she was never around when I was with other people. I held her, smelled her sweet, sweaty neck, kissed her, sang to her, and decided in my dream that I had completely lost my mind and made her up.

I was in the mall near the house I grew up in with my friend Kathryn, and we were shopping for baby things, and I was nervous because I realized that I would soon have to tell her that there wasn’t a baby to meet, and that she’d come all the way to Hamilton to learn that I’d lied to everyone. Then my cell phone rang, and it was my mother calling to see when I’d be home because the baby was getting hungry.

This dream continued through the course of two alarms going off in my real world.

Presently, at my house, we are working together to concoct the stories we will tell the rest of the world about our relationship and connection to one another. Various facets of our life will hear various elements of our reality. Each story is crafted to allow for the most inclusion and involvement in each other’s communities, and to protect the children as best we can.

I know I’m idealistic, but it’s so frustrating to think of all the kids I’ve known over the course of my life in two-parent households that were so, so lacking in even the very basic things that humans require. I had a little girlfriend when I was nine who used to come to school reeking of her parent’s chain smoking, always with matted hair and a Kool-aid mustache, wearing the same clothes every day until the teacher had to send her home to change. It’s maddening to think that someone might raise an alarm because our household has three loving parents who would do anything for these girls growing up here.

This is our reality – we cannot be exactly as we are anywhere we’d like to go. I, who always like a good fight, must realize this more than anyone. There are compromises to be made for the sake of protecting ourselves and our home. It’s just such a shame after spending 33 years not fully realizing myself that I can’t always shout it to the world.

Silly prideful lion.

My Tribe

001_primary

Everyone I know and love is having babies.

Ok, not EVERYONE, but close. While sharing in their joy and excitement, this also leaves me feeling a little bit like the last unicorn.

The last year and a half in Schnooville has been an incredible exercise in learning my independence, and really growing very happy standing on my own. I’m happy with the woman I am, and satisfied with my life, and I’ve decided that I never want to feel like I need someone else in order to have the kind of life that I want.

As a result, I began to think about how I might complete the rest of the puzzle without anyone else, if for no other reason to stop feeling like I’m waiting for someone to fall into my life. I stopped looking. I began imagining single-parent scenarios, and made a list of all the people I knew I could count on for support if I decided to go down that road.

Then something extraordinary happened.

Is there a “right” way to have a family? Is the conventional two-parent, heterosexual model the only one? In this day of two mommy and two daddy families, can we really believe that only a mommy and a daddy can create a positive, loving home in which to raise a family?

Not in Schnooville. Here, we’re looking beyond the traditional Western model. The vast and mysterious universe has served up an order I wouldn’t have even thought to place, and now I’m turning my world around and examining each corner and each line to see how everything I thought I knew about life and love can be renovated and remodeled for a bigger, better reality.

I hope to be able to share more of this wonderful story here, but first there are big decisions to make, and very important people to share these decisions with. There will be no immediate pitter patter either. A lot of love and groundwork must be laid down first. What I wish to impart is that life will give you wonderful things if you open up your heart and trust in powers that are greater than us all.

Possibility is one of the most exciting things I know. It invites imagination, dreaming, and hope in abundance. The way we embrace possibility tells us so much about the people we are, and the way we move through our lives.

This possibility is just too good to walk away from.