my DNA isn’t magic

I have made a conscious, deliberate decision not to have children.  I can not remember any moment of my life spent thinking that having a baby would be a great idea.  Ever since I was in high school, I knew that children just weren’t in the cards for me.  I am 100% certain about this.  I married my husband because he agrees with me on this issue. 

Now, if I suffer a traumatic brain injury or some other emotional or physical shock that manages to plug in my biological clock, I still would not give birth to a baby.  I would adopt. 

Every pet I have owned has been unwanted and left by the wayside.  Why should it be any different with a child? 

So, it amazes me what people will go through in order to create a genetic reproduction of themselves when the egg and sperm don’t seem to want to cooperate on their own.  All the time, money and heartbreak so a baby can be born that has his mother’s eyes or his daddy’s smile. 

Yes, I can understand how wonderful it would be to see parts of yourself or your spouse in another little human being.  To see what you love in each other combined in a baby.  However, is that the reason people have babies?  Just to pass on their physical traits? 

Well, it used to be.  The whole natural selection thing and all.  And, even in the 21st century, people do choose mates based on physical appearance.  However, there are not many internet dating sites devoted to matching people up based on how cute their babies would be.  No, in most industrialized nations, people marry for love.  They should want a baby for the same reason. 

But, love doesn’t seem to be enough.  People seem obsessed with passing on their DNA.  Hormone treatments, in vitro fertilization, freezing embryos, anything at any cost to have a baby.  Their baby. 

Is this an evolutionary throw-back, or something else?  Are people really so vain?  What makes you think your DNA is so special? 

What if the DNA of someone else was even more special? 

Example:
Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computers, was adopted as a baby.  Steve’s biological parents later married and had a daughter, Mona Simpson.  Mona became a very successful writer and her novel, Anywhere But Here, was adapted into a movie starring Susan Sarandon and Natalie Portman.  Steve’s adopted parents also had a daughter named Patty.  I am sure that Patty is a very wonderful person and is successful in her own right.  However, if you Google “Steve Jobs’s sister” guess who pops up?  Mona.  No mention of poor Patty. 

I know that I just implied that you have to be rich and famous in order to be “special”, but of course that is not the case.  Really, I just found that interesting bit of information about Steve Jobs today and wanted to fit it in here somewhere. 

I have to wonder, though, if Steve Jobs would have become the man he is today if his poor, unwed, grad student parents had NOT given him up for adoption.  Maybe it was the stable family environment and good old fashioned love that helped Steve become successful.  Well, that’s the whole “nature versus nurture” argument and I don’t think we’re gonna solve that one any time soon. 

The whole point of having a baby should be to pass on and share love and life and experience.  You can do this with any baby, be it Asian, African, Middle Eastern or, in my case, canine.  Love is love.  There are too many babies born every day without any love.  Why does an un-born biological baby deserve more love than any of those unwanted babies?  Why should one baby be forced into life using science and medicine, while another, already alive baby is ignored?

you don’t deserve it, but I thank you anyway

To the soulless, mouth-breathing SOB’s who neglected and abandoned every dog I have owned, I must give a heart felt Thank You.  Your laziness and ignorance have given me days, upon years of joy and laughter.  I absolve you of any ember of guilt that you may (but probably don’t) harbor because the dogs you threw away are now enjoying fuller, happier lives than you could ever hope to live.  The dogs that you deemed undeserving or simply a burden will now never want for food, warmth, play or affection.  The dogs that you tried to kill with indifference will instead be cherished for the rest of their lives.  And I hope, that when the spark fades from their eyes and the last breath leaves them, they somehow come to understand that all the human words they learned from me like chow, ride, treat, ice cube all really meant just one thing: Love. 

So, thank you again for giving me amazing companions that you were never worthy of anyway. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

While I was in Florida watching my sister’s beautiful, beach-side wedding, the wonderful people of Athens Pet Sitter were taking care of our precious mutts.  One of their many services is to film a few minutes of your pets and post it on YouTube so you can see just how much fun they had without you. 

Here are our dogs Ripley and Mathilda (the round dark brown one and taller black/white one) and my sister’s dogs Brutal and Scarlett (the little brown/tan one and the tan pit-bull mix) enjoying a little game of “ball” in my back yard (they aren’t very good at it):

love

Appropriate for the day, here is one of my favorite poems (love or otherwise):

silently if,out of not knowable
night’s utmost nothing,wanders a little guess
(only which is this world) more my life does
not leap than with the mystery of your smile

sings or if(spiraling as luminous
they climb oblivion) voices who are dreams,
less into heaven certainly earth swims
than each my deeper death becomes your kiss

losing through you what seemed myself,i find
selves unimaginably mine; beyond
sorrow’s own joys and hoping’s very fears

yours is the light by which my spirit’s born:
yours is the darkness of my soul’s return
- you are my sun,my moon,and all my stars

e. e. cummings

Back in the day, I wanted my future husband and I to write our own wedding vows.  He took his pen and paper to the kitchen table and I took mine to the couch.  After a few minutes I had scribbled down some elegant little verses and had also paraphrased the third stanza of the above poem.  The love of my life seemed frustrated with his task, but he managed to write a few lines.  Smiling, he handed me the paper. 
I read the first couple lines which were sweet, but simple declarations of love.  Then, as I continued reading, the words started to ring familiar in my ears:

You light up my life
You give me hope
To carry on
And you, light up my days
And fill my nights with love

Freakin’ Debbie Boone!  He, naturally, thought it was hilarious.  I was not amused.  I balled up the paper and threw it at him.  My sister, with clear forethought, took the paper, flattened it back out and put it away (all the time laughing her ass off).  She knew that one day I would be able to look back on this and laugh and I would want that paper as a reminder.  I have and I did. 

We ended up using passages from The Song of Solomon in our ceremony.  Our vows were “this is my beloved and this is my friend.”  What could sum it up better than that? 

It’s okay to not like something about someone you love

My husband and I were watching tv the other night, and one of those commercials for eHarmony came on.  Flashes of beaming couples clinging to each other desperately and in each couple one would say, “I love everything about him/her” while giggling uncontrollably. 

I look at my husband.  He looks at me.  “I don’t love everything about you.” I say to him.  “Good,” he says.  “I don’t love everything about you either.” Thank god.  We go back to watching tv.

I have nothing against on-line dating services, but the commercials are ridiculous.  You can’t love everything about someone.  That’s not love.  That’s obsession and it’s not healthy.  I want my husband to love me even though I have flaws and bad habits, but I don’t want him to love the flaws and bad habits.  If he did, then he couldn’t help me try to get over them.  I mean, I don’t love everything about me so why should he?

My husband leaves his clothes lying around everywhere.  I hate it.  Because I hate it, I bitch at him about it.  He doesn’t like to hear me bitch (don’t blame him, I don’t like it either), so he tries to remember to pick up his clothes.  He’s gotten better at it, too.  I’m sure that I do something that gets on his nerves that he bitches at me to stop doing, but for the life of me I can’t think of what it could be at the moment.  But, whatever it is, I will try to stop doing it. 

Those commercials make people think that there is something wrong with them because they can’t find someone that loves everything about them and someone that they love everything about.  It’s so unrealistic.  It’s an ideal that no couple can live up to.  But who would want to?  It sounds god awful boring to me.  How complacent would you get if you lived with someone who never argued with you or never called you out on something stupid that you’ve done.  After a while, you would probably start to think that you were perfect in every way.  What an ass you would turn into! 

People are not perfect and they need to find someone who loves them enough to remind them of it.