The much loved hen says some wise words here.... here ... and it makes me think.

I understand something now that I havent understood in a long time... something I don't think I ever thought about. Not until the wise words of the hen. The hen talks here about the onslaught of time, of the ticking of the clock that regulates our bodies, that regulates who we are and what we do. you know, that biological one. That one that ticks down into barreness and infertility.

Some people choose to have children. Some people choose not to have children. Some people fall into parenthood either by accident, or design.Some people have that choice made for them. Its just the way it is.

nO, Hens post made me thinka bout something. My ex-wife - She wanted children. Badly. But the sexual frisson between us was such as to ensure that was not a likely possibility. After two years of marriage, there were no babies to buy clothes for. No little boots to knit. But on the other hand, there was a large collection of Lilo and Stitch toys. An unaturally large collection.

There was one time, when my brother said something to me that was something I had never realised. He looked at the collection, and said to me - "You know, its all just a baby substitute". I couldn't deny it though, as it was true. And I knew it. No matter how much I pushed it out of my mind, it was true.

The role of a husband - what is it? To worry? to protect? to fulfil? I'm not sure sometimes. I think the role of a husband is - and most importantly - to take the same journey together, with that person you love. Thats what you sign up for. It soon came to pass however, that I felt there were other things at play - other reasons in her mind that making that journey together. partly, it was not so much taking the journey together, but taking two seperate journeys and meeting up occasionally on the way - like when she subsumed herself into that damn idiot stupid church. it became more about what I COULD do for her, what she could mould me into. A good mormon husband, temple worthy, paying tithing, never questioning. never thinking. Baa.

But not just that. I had a duty, an obligation to provide. Not just to provide for her, and for us, to to provide her with children. (Part of this has to do with the mormon belief that there are a supply of souls - spirit children - awaiting bodies on earth, and therefore it is our role to make physical bodies - babies - for those souls to inhabit. incredibly bizarre. When is it that the souls start inhabiting the bodies? Like some sort of body snatchers occupation thing)

It didn't happen. it didn't look likely (there were physical complications , not least of all her weight - heavy women find it more difficult to conceive, and she was exceptionally (BMI:52.9) heavy.

And then one day it was over between us. And reading hens post, I can't help but think maybe one of the reasons why was the lack of tiny feet. The lack of an anchor which set us adrift. The problem is, though - a baby is not an anchor. it is a responsibility. No baby can keep a relationship together that isn't working. If you can't keep the two of you together, how can you keep three of you together? If you need a baby to keep the relationship going - and to keep it going out of obligation - then the relationship between them two of you is not enough to make it work. And it didn't. It broke.

And part of me thinks of me it was my fault, because she ended it because I hadn't provided her with that baby she wanted. And so she gave up, and there you go. No hope of a baby from me, I obviously had no purpose, and thus, I was excess to requirements. Thats all I was to her, was it? I really don't know, not anymore. But I had never thought of it that way, until the hen wrote about it. And it sort of made sense. And the clock was ticking.....

Funny, how sometimes someone can say somethign and it seems so obvious all of a sudden. All along, it was under your nose and you didn't even know it, you really didn't....

(of course, now I have one child and another on the way,maybe it wasn't me that was the problem after all....)