Not having kids was one of the best things I ever did. I got into a discussion the other day about what we feel is the best thing we ever did, and well, obviously meeting and marrying Tom was one of the best things I ever did, and so was quitting smoking. Besides that, not having kids was one of the smartest moves I ever made. Being stuck in so many places as I have been has made a real freedom junkie out of me over the years. I think it would for most people. Because I am too selfish to give up my freedom, I realize that if I had gone and had the child that I once considered having, my life probably would have been hell. It’s been hard enough fending for ourselves over the years, so to have added a third person to clothe and feed would have only made life all the harder.

Then you have the fact that they are incredibly loud, incredibly expensive, incredibly smelly (yes, I’ve changed diapers before), incredibly time-consuming and incredibly animalistic. I honestly don’t understand how most people do it. Okay, I can see where there would be some good in it, but for the most part, it just seems like an awful lot of hard work and money for so little in return.

When I got married in 1994, this was getting to be when it was becoming more common for marrieds not to have kids as the pressure on women grew to focus more on work. This isn’t why I opted in the end not to have kids, though. I didn’t care if it was more “hip” not to be a Mom. And I didn’t care if it was more “in” to be independent. The fact is that I had been forced to be a puppet on a string for so long that once my life finally belonged to me, I just didn’t want to give it up. Doing what you’re told if you can get paid for it and still have a life is one thing. But literally paying to give it up is another. I felt the intense need to live my life for me after all the drama I’d been through in the past.

Even though it means that Tom and I will grow old alone with no one to help us, I have never regretted this decision. It is unbelievably annoying to go to a store and have to listen to somebody else’s brat scream in my ear while I am trying to shop, so I couldn’t imagine having that in my house 24 hours a day. Even if you are willing to teach your kids manners, respect and discipline unlike many parents these days, kids are still kids and they are still highly uncivilized and noisy. There is only so much you can do to stop a crying baby, just like there is only so much you can do to stop a barking dog. It’s simply what babies and dogs do.

Where we would have come up with the money to afford it, of course, is another thing because I have been very poor for most of my life. We certainly would have had to give up so, so much in life and miss out on many fun and educational experiences. We’re not poor right now, but as I have learned, the past has a way of returning to haunt us. While it may be true that the closer we get to his retirement, the less likely it seems that poverty will bite us in the ass again, what can happen once can happen twice. And what can happen many times can happen many times more.

The biggest factor in my decision, more so than cost and noise, was definitely the freedom aspect of it. To be able to study languages, write books - even keep a journal for as long and as detailed as I have - would have simply been out of the question with all the time and attention the child would have demanded. When you think about it, we can’t even come and go as we please with just the two of us even when we can afford to because his job dictates when we can come and go. So I can just imagine how much more restricted we would have been if there were three of us.

My freedom means everything to me, right or wrong. Some person with power over me, if not circumstances beyond my control, stifled my freedom greatly as a child and into my young adulthood. Go through what I have gone through and you will see that your life is not something you’re just willing to just throw away so easily. The longer you have to spend fighting for your freedom, the harder it is to simply discard it. Eventually, that kid would have grown up and moved out on its own, of course, but the 18 or more years it would have been with us would probably have seemed like an eternity.

So… it was definitely one of the best things I ever did in life… to not have children. I not only help the population crisis, but I can’t count how many moms I’ve met who at the same time would tell me how much they loved their kids, would have a look of longing and regret in their eyes when they would mentally reminisce about their pre-kid days.

My advice to the younger folks of today is don’t do something just because you can. Think it through first! While it’s always a wonderful thing when we can focus on the positive aspects of things, it’s also important to focus on the negative as well so we can see the full picture. Some things have a lot more negative than we may realize if we only focus on the positive, causing us to dive into something all eager and happy until reality slaps us in the face… hard.

Later…

I should have added the worry factor to my last entry about why I’m glad I never had kids. One less person I have to worry about. It’s hard enough at times worrying about Tom when he’s out there in the big bad world. So to worry that some abused and twisted kid might go and shoot up the school the kid was at would have been a bit unnerving despite the odds.

Now I can bitch about my diet. Well, it’s not the diet that’s a problem. Nutrisystem works if you have a working metabolism that can burn calories properly. But mine is still too slow and I could kick myself for not knowing better. I’m definitely not going to lose more than the few pounds I’ve lost, though I have stuck to the diet religiously for over a week now and will do so for the next month. I don’t know why I thought things would be different this time around. After all, I stopped dieting years ago for a reason and that was because my body would not respond to diet and exercise. Then again it does respond to exercise. Exercising keeps me in good shape, builds muscle and gives me energy, endurance and stamina. No problems or complaints in that department, it’s just the layer of fat on top of it all that can’t be shed.

I don’t know why I felt the need to do NS since I’ve been on low-calorie diets before. I think that the fact that I never paid anybody to plan out my diet for me was an exciting idea and I wanted a new experience. I like the food and I definitely won’t be gaining any weight on this diet, but it’s not worth the money in my case. I can eat in a similar fashion on my own, taking in sugar, cholesterol and fried foods in moderation, so I will definitely be canceling my next shipment.

Meanwhile, some things we just can’t get the body to do. All we can do is try our best and then move on. For me, trying to get extra weight off would be like trying to grow taller. It’s not going to happen any more than I’m going to float or fly. The lost weight would have reduced health risks, but I was never unhealthy to begin with. Hashimoto’s doesn’t necessarily make you unhealthy as long as you treat it. So… I will continue on in the upper 140s where I have been since 2008-2009 or something like that. I could look a lot worse for my age and I know it.

Later…

I had several interesting dreams last night. In one of them, I was going to call Nane at work and surprise her. LOL, I would never do that even if she lived in my country.

My Italian foster mother was in one of the dreams too, but I don’t remember what we said to each other.

In another dream, I was in a large house and my parents and sister were present, along with a young (Asian?) couple that was arguing about something. They were notorious for arguing constantly and I was about to tell them to shut up when I noticed a bunch of papers piled on the kitchen counter. I said that the kitchen counter wasn’t meant for piles of paper, especially since it would make cleaning harder.

Then this really good-looking redhead came into the room and said that the idea was for me to clean around the papers. I was about to put up a protest but then the redhead told me that I won something. I’m not sure if it was money or dolls, but there was a large box of about five or six good-sized dolls that people were trying to win in a raffle. I don’t know who those people were besides myself.

I wandered into the living room, which was huge. The ceiling had to be 20’ tall. I looked upwards at the front end of the room and saw a fancy old curtain hanging down from the ceiling where a huge window ran along that area. In front of it was a huge dome-shaped skylight with a white sheet covering it. I realized this was due to the heat and sun and thought of how ideal the skylight and huge windows would have been up in Oregon

Next thing I know I’m outside on a chaise lounge sun tanning in a bikini. The gorgeous redhead sat down on the chaise next to me and asked if I wanted some more oil applied to my body. I said I would and I shifted from my back to my stomach where she slowly rubbed some on my back and even slower into my ass. I enjoyed the feeling and she seemed to enjoy that I was enjoying it. You know how I am, if something is good looking I don’t care if it’s got a dick or a pussy between its legs. I admire and appreciate the beauty of both women and men even though personality is most important.

The only dream that was a little disturbing was that I was locked in a room in a house with a woman and possibly a couple of toddlers because she was terrified that somebody was trying to kill them. She had to disable the alarm system in order to go out and check the mail and I wondered what was so important about the mail that she would take such a chance if she were in that much danger.

So I stepped out into the living room with her, and sure enough, as soon as she opened the door, a bunch of men barged into the room. I froze and wondered if I should just assume it was hopeless and allow myself to be killed, or if I should try to escape. Then survival instinct kicked in and I decided to try to make a run for it. The strange thing is that everybody suddenly disappeared and I was left alone with one little boy calling himself Arden. I knew that taking Arden with me would be way too risky as he would slow us down tremendously and we would both be killed for sure. I decided to make a run for it on my own and hopefully return with help to save him and anyone else who may need saving.