I’ve been sitting on these thoughts for a few days and still don’t know quite what my point is.

Early in the week I finished reading a book called “Nightbitch”. I started it about 2 weeks ago, read perhaps 30 pages and put it aside. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it and thought “This kind of reminds me of “The Yellow Wallpaper”.   When I researched reviews I was validated in that reaction as at least one reviewer had the same thought.

Would it surprise you to know that I did not skip to the end of the book to get some idea of where it was going? It wouldn’t have made any difference if I had, this is one very odd book. I skimmed those first 30 or so pages because none of it was making any sense to me, others might relate, I couldn’t and can’t.

Still, I went back to the book, picking up where I left off and then became engaged. It is very well written. (I’m not sure how to define ‘very well written’ but I enjoyed the reading of the book – the words flowed, everything held together.)  Before the book is due back at the library I have to read more closely those pages I skimmed.

I think there are many people who can and will relate to the story, I am not one of them because I am not/have never been, a mother.  This book is very much for women who are mothers.  I have so little understanding of motherhood – being pregnant, giving birth, raising a child while simultaneously having a job, being a wife, being a housekeeper – all the many roles a woman with children plays.

And I think it is only a certain type of woman who would relate to this book. But I may be wrong there, perhaps all women with children can. Never having been that woman, I can’t be sure.

I have never wanted to be married or a parent. I knew early on that marriage and family was not for me. It’s interesting to look back and note that other people saw the same thing in me that I did. And said so. I don’t regret never having had children but I do regret ever having married. I am not marriage material.

I can’t decide whether this book has something important to say, or whether it is just odd and more than somewhat, oh, let’s say shocking. Click the reviews link, read them and decide for yourself whether you would wanted to venture there. I became comfortable with the premise but I think many would not be.

This book just got me thinking about who I am not, and never was. And never wanted to be. And there is no such thing as a ‘natural’ woman. And there are no shoulds about who a person is. And it makes me thank my lucky stars that so many of society’s shoulds never touched me, or that I never let them color my view of who I was/am/hoped to be.  I can’t say I escaped all of those shoulds, I didn’t.  I do regret that I acquiesced to them.

I am not unusual or unique in who I am, or how I’ve lived my life, or how I’ve always viewed myself.  Is it totally egocentric or self-involved to say I’m so very glad that I am me. And that I wish I had had the guts to be even more me?