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Darling, What Scares You About the Future?
#Nonficit — 2
Lately I’ve been listening to my own doubts. I fear I may be living in an alternate universe of The Handmaid’s Tale where I am Offred’s little sister who loved a man in secret but couldn’t bear to let him close enough for fear she would hand down maladies through her blood.
The idea of becoming pregnant is anathema to me. My mother bore three miscarriages just for the sake of having me — and a sibling for me, perhaps — all the while her body was ravaged by complications.
But the truth lies darker in my blood. There’s a madness there, a depression, that scares me. I fear the thought of passing this silent frenzy on, of leading a child down a dark wooded path just because of the curse in my veins and the schematics of my genes.
Worse, I think, is the idea that I would subject a partner to the worst years of his life if I fell to the darkness of postpartum depression. I can imagine a world where he would toil by himself, caring for a newborn and a household, all the while I fell to darker demons I couldn’t control. The idea of it makes me feel sick to my stomach. Why would I want to do that to anyone? There are other women who did not think of such ills, but I do. I think of all the possibilities that spin out like webs to a future I would not want.
