Stuck In A Single Identity
My identity is tied up in my singleness, my childlessness, and I’m not sure I want to let that go.
“If I were to have kids,” I tell my therapist, “I would feel like I’m betraying my tribe.” I laugh as I say it, aware of how ridiculous it sounds. She stares back at me from my dirt-speckled screen, a familiar face I have yet to meet in person. What I’m trying to say is that my identity is tied up in my singleness, my childlessness, and I’m not sure I want to let that go. The admission surprises me, not because it hasn’t struck hard when I imagine a baby in my home or a ring on my finger, but because I’m finally saying it out loud.
My eyes wander around my one-bedroom apartment, a small space that I’ve made my own with a floor-to-ceiling wall of books, mismatched furniture, and a cozy corner to write in. The coffee table where I prop my screen — my therapist — has furnished hundreds of dinners with friends; my patterned rug has faded from too many nights pacing and laughing on the phone. It is the first place I’ve lived as an adult that I don’t view as a temporary stopover before partnership and cohabitation, but as my home.
This identity has taken me a long time to settle into. It’s not just that I’ve been more or less single for over a decade, it’s that the period I spent alone — my…
