Am I Wrong?

I want to have children…little people that are part me, part another I consider special enough to contribute the other part…
I want to raise them… to impart knowledge to them…to teach them as I’ve been taught…to point them along the paths I’ve learnt to be true and protect them from those that don’t need to be experienced to be learnt…to praise and to scold…to tease and advise…to wake them up in the mornings, and pack them off to school…to pick them up at the end of the day, or sooner if need be…to bake cookies and make sandwiches…to tie shoelaces and unwrap gifts…to decipher kindergarten drawings and interpret life’s mysteries…to drive to football practice and recitals…to attend christenings and graduations…
I want to laugh with them and laugh at them…to cry with them and cry for them…to kiss bruised knees and dry teary cheeks…to hold them close when the night terrors come… to comfort them through lost toys and broken hearts… to rejoice with them through jigsaws completed and races won…
I want to give half my genes and the whole of my heart to these little people that will forever be part of me even as they are persons unto themselves…to set myself up for infinite joy and unfathomable heartbreak…
I want this…

Now What?!!?

I look ahead at what is to come-at what lies ahead- and I feel this…strangling… this panic attack starting somewhere deep inside. With an effort I block thoughts of tomorrow-of the future-because to think of it is to feel walls closing in…to feel the air being sucked out of the room, leaving me gasping…a fish out of water…

I look back, hoping to see…what? That wrong turn? That error of judgment that landed me at this point of impossibly complex crossroads? It’s not there. They all seemed like right choices then, even wise. But looking at where they’ve brought me to, I wonder…were they really?

Maybe I should have taken a left there, or a right here. Maybe I should have questioned the wisdom of following the arrows marking out the path…querried the guiding voices. Maybe I should have glanced at the unmarked paths running almost parallel to mine; maybe I should have explored all the offshoots at all those junctions I marched unseeingly through…

But I just plodded on, only occasionally asking…”Are you sure?” and not really hoping for a negative answer because it was so much easier to follow the arrows and trust the voices to lead me to the right point. Well, they did…Here. Now.

I look ahead-a zillion crossroads-and see no arrows. The voices are silent.

I AM ALONE