As my husband slept on a beach towel beside me, I admired my hip bone and ribcage. Some women would hate to lose inches from their ass or drop a cup size but not me. I was happy?ecstatic, really?to be eight pounds thinner. It seemed like a last hurrah: How much longer would I be able to enjoy shrinking my body"
?We won?t always be able to just hit the beach on Thanksgiving,? I said as we walked to the car, flip-flops sandy and necks scorched. ?This was so much fun.?
?It could be our family tradition,? he said, reminding me of something I?d said on a hike earlier that morning when I?d talked around the hazy possibility of maybe, someday, kind of almost being ready to have kids.
I tried not to get quiet as we drove away from the ocean, but, of course, I did. Whenever children are the implicit or explicit topic of conversation, I clam up. My worries are so manifold, they could span the beachfront: If we begin a family, will I regret having children" Will I feel like I?ve succumbed to some weird evolutionary pressure that I often feel my generation should?ve outsmarted" Will I have enough time to continue developing as a writer" Will I be able to think through the storm of hate I assume I?d feel in response to my body?s changes" And if I don?t have children, will I grow old and sad, ponderous as I ruminate over who I could?ve been as a mother"
Still, even though I sometimes say otherwise, I don’t like to think about ad...