a reasonable price

Last night K and I went for a walk around the neighborhood after a long lapse. I have been busy with my SIL's visit, and she with her new job. She had just returned from a weekend visit to an old friend in Cottage Grove, and she remarked how startling and sad it was to see her friend aging quicker then she expected. Her friend, J, lives alone, never married, never had any children and now, as she approaches 60, she claims to have precious few regrets about her chosen course. She revels in her independence and freedom. But K has noticed how clingy J becomes whenever K pays her a visit, how excited J gets over even insignificant interactions with others, how little meaningful contact she has with the world, and the utter absence of intimacy in her life.

Neither K nor I have children, and this fact bonds us to one another and occasionally it stresses us out. As we both creep into middle-age, the question becomes ever more urgent and the weighing of pluses and minuses has consumed more than a few wine-fueled conversations over the years. She swears she'll never do it, and I don't doubt her -her time is running out and the stars are not aligning. My case is still up in the air. I am younger then she is, and my husband isn't entirely opposed to the idea, although we are of one mind in avoiding a decision at this juncture. But now, reflecting despondently upon the loneliness of her friend J, K exclaimed "I don't want to end up like that!" And neither do I -but if we choose not to share our present lives with children, how will we avoid it?

We called to mind our early days in Portland, when we worked together at a low-income apartment building for senior citizens. All those sick, lonely, desperate men and women who would seek the company of the measly front-desk girl, simply from a lack of alternatives. We thought of the few folks who were found dead, hours or days after. One man was found, face down on the floor, eyes wide open and his hands outstretched. There was no one to call, no one to make funeral preparations, no one to lovingly go through his belongings and save them for the generations to follow. Many tenants were estranged from their children, which seemed to me such a terrible waste.

I said, "It will probably suck to be old and alone. But what price are we expected to pay in order to avoid it?" I thought of all the reasons I have remained childless. I do not like the idea of being at the beck and call of a child. I hate the thought of never doing what I want to do, when I want to do it. I can't bear the thought of losing all sense of privacy and independence. I don't want to drive kids all over town, to soccer practice and sleepovers. I don't relish the idea of being called an asshole by my teenager. And this is just a start.

"Is it worth it," I said, "to sacrifice all of our present desires and freedom simply out of a theoretical fear that we might be alone when we are old? Isn't being alone in our later years a reasonable price to pay for all the fun we're having now?" Silence fell, and I mulled for a moment over the quantity and the quality of all the "fun" I am supposedly having. I vowed then and there to have a hell of a lot more of it, since I am purchasing it at such a high and painful price.