Posts Tagged ‘pregnant’
Broadway Baby
Posted on: March 3, 2011
When I went to my ten year high school reunion (a few years ago), I was ready to see girls that let themselves go and all the social hierarchy broken down. I was greeted with the opposite; girls look the same if not better than the class photo of 1999 reflected and people still not breaking the clique ranks. Somehow I escaped being grouped in or cast out because I had two things going for me I lost a bunch of weight and I was now a New Yorker. Leaving Sacramento California did not happen for many of the beautiful bright group of women I attended prep school with. It was not a high school reunion like you see on TV, with malice filled angst carried over, it was drunken catching up. What surprised me was the astonishment and jealousy which people had for me simply because I moved to New York. Anyone can move to New York – pack your bags and say goodbye to your money, your love of space and prepare to be stepped on or pushed. One of my ex-classmates from all the way back to elementary school, kept punching me, “Oh my God, I’m so jealous. It’s like Sex in the City right, like Sex in the City?” I’ve never earned enough in a year to own a single shoe from Jimmy Choo. I wanted to tell her – Look the grass isn’t greener, it’s just pavement.
The difference was that she had two beautiful kids that she loved, but wished she had lived a little. I guess that means I’m living a lot for the both of us. I thought of this past exchange when I walked by a woman on the 123 platform in the famed Time Square 42nd street subway stop. This slightly blond curly haired young woman leaned against a garbage can reading a book. There was a baby blue sign moderately decorated with colored pen that read, “Seven months pregnant, my boyfriend left me…” There was a whole lot more written but I stopped to look at her belly for confirmation. If she was lying she found an amazingly accurate prosthetic. As I have become more dependent to the power of the credit card, I had little to offer in cash. I dug deep to find a dollar clinging to crumpled receipts in my wallet. When I went back to her to give my meager findings we had a slight hand shack in our exchange of the single George Washington, “God Bless” she said simply. My response, “Best of luck.” Blessings in exchange for Luck.
Surprisingly similar but not an actual picture of the woman I met.
The next day she was gone, replaced by a guy on a saxophone blowing a medley of pop songs from the 70’s that drunken foreign tourists could dance too while vaguely remembering the words.
I thought about that woman, wondered where she was and who would be there for her when she brought her bundle of love into this world. I was there when my cousin brought her son into the world last week, so was her mom, dad, boyfriend’s mom and dad, a good friend, and her boyfriend who barely left her side. Her child, my nephew, perfect.
Living in New York is a constant bombardment of the extremes of life. People have kids young here too, but you also have playboys who never marry and simply date women who they are old enough to father. I’m sure leaning against a garbage can pregnant amidst the bright lights of Broadway wasn’t a far escalated situation from where this young woman grew up. After almost eight years of being here, this is the first year I have felt like a real New Yorker, jaded, cynical, tired – hopeful. Even though I have not chosen an easy route, I have been lucky enough to choose my route, to rest my head in a city that never sleeps and more or less make it here, which makes me feel blessed.
Baby on Bar
Posted on: February 22, 2011
It’s 2008; just weeks before my 27th birthday, my cousin and I sat down to plan our double-birthday March madness bash. With only five days separating our birthdays, March becomes an all out assault on being single and getting older in a city that makes it possible for you to never grow up. Anywhere else on earth the likes of a 34 year old single person who never married and never had a kid would be deemed broken, in New York they are revered as Gods – untouchables. In fact there is a growing number of twenty-year-old women chasing down the elusive “untouchables” to change their unsettling ways. George Clooney has made this chase an art.
My cousin and I thought we were going to be “untouchables” – never wanting to settle down. Our sign, Pisces – difficult fish to catch. We sat there at an Upper West Side dinner planning on inviting everyone we know to the swanky second floor midtown bar for our celebration. The drinkathon would be the Thursday night on the eve of my actual birthday. I told her how my mother concerned said, “I was married by your age.” That’s when we came up with FBA. FBA is a bet and stands for First B*tch to the Aisle (FBTTA didn’t sound as cool). The rules – who ever walks down the aisle first is the loser. If you got married first you were deemed Dead Bitch Walkin’. The loser was at the mercy of what the winner wanted them to do. My cousin new immediately what my punishment would be – a tattoo. I hate needles. She loves tattoos. I had to think about mine for a bit, but it takes awhile for coal to become diamonds. If my cousin loss she would have to name her first-born child after me – Marisa could be a boys name. After hearing this, my cousin upped the ante, the tattoo had to now have her name or initials in it. She didn’t stop there – if one of us got pregnant before marriage we had to get a tattoo with the other person’s name and name the child after the winner. This scenario was never going to happen.
Now about nine months ago on the 4th of July, I helped my cousin pack to move into her new apartment. We were both nowhere near an aisle, but close like sisters. We hadn’t seen each other in a couple of weeks, something that rarely happened since we moved here together almost eight years ago. I asked the same question we had asked each other a million times, “What’s up with you?” Her response a bit unusual, “Do you really want to know?” Jokingly I responded, “Let me guess I won the bet, your pregnant.” Calmly, with a subtle excitement in her voice, “Hope you’re ready to be an auntie.” I was excited, scared, jubilant, more scared and relieved that I didn’t have to get a tattoo. Little Marisa was on her way! Ever so ready, she looked at me, “I wanted to have kids by the time I was 30.” It hit me like a ton of rocks, I always thought we shared similar paths and all this time we veered in different directions – from thinking kids were just fun to look at from a safe distance, behind the glass of contraceptives.
It didn’t really hit me until a few weeks after, it was a Saturday night and my boyfriend was out of town. It was time for a real girls night. I was already out and dressed for some good ol’ bar hoping debauchery. I looked at my phone to find all my girls were now doing stuff with their husbands or fiancés. I called the dwindled number of single friends, called the two and neither picked up their phone. But there was always my partner in crime, my cousin. I went to dial and realized my drinking buddy was now creating baby buddies. My New York was changing; nothing was untouchable.
The nine months flew and there we were, two ladies of Manhattan, sisters created from the beating that this city throws at you, standing amidst the lighting fixtures at Home Depot. My cousin’s boyfriend was off with her parents looking for a drill while I stood there pushing the cart as she waddled beside me carrying 40 weeks of life inside of her. “Come out already, your auntie wants to play,” I sad as people eyes darted around us trying to figure out if we were a couple or sisters. “I’m ready,” she says with little care that people are looking. “Eight years ago when we moved to New York, did you ever think we would be walking through Home Depot while you were ready to pop.” My cousin is special, beautiful while being bloated, without looking at me responds, “Yes.” Her baby might not have been planned, but it’s what she had in plan.
She is getting the tattoo, she won’t tell me how my name is involved. Her boyfriend has vetoed a son named Marisa. The bet was still won by me, but my cousin really has the prize.
Now if the baby would only come out!
buy the time ... 