This is me. There's a freak show going on in my brain.

I spend a lot of time walking the streets, people watching.

I watch people, okay?

I'm a Peeping Tom that's just right there in the open, walking to work. I'm Blues, butt watcher, boob leerer, clothing critic.

I'll dissect your fashion statement in a millisecond in my mind.

My gaze used to favor the young and beautiful, the slender, the sleek, the strong, the dolled-up. My eyes preferred the ones subconsciously offering breeding services to members of the opposite sex through impressive and accentuated hip to waist ratios, through strong family-protecting arms, through voluptuous baby-feedable breasts highlighted by the appropriate push-up equipment, through clothing displaying a certain level of social status and ability to financially support offspring. My glance lingered upon those that fit the very precise and limited beauty mould that our culture has decided deserves a double take.

Pretty people, yup.

But lately, I find that my eyes linger over the motherly.

I see women, their pouchy abdomens attesting to the children they have carried. I see their less than perky boobs that finally became entirely utilitarian, after years of oblique glances stolen, peripheral staring, and a lot of fuss. They have finally passed the phase of alimentary purposefulness. I see some of them in their mom jeans that highlight what happens to the female bodies...afterwards. And I know they would never trade their children for their old bodies.

I see a young mother extend an arm backwards, pinky jutted out while she looks sternly at a small child walking behind her, encouraging the child to take her hand. I hear the child say, "Mamá" and the woman answers, "Que?", exasperated, as if tired of all the questions. And I wonder, does she take it for granted in that moment? Being a mom?

I canvas their faces for proof of age. Are they older than me? Are they younger than me? Maybe they are older but have just had some work done. Shit, she must be old. I wonder what kind of wrinkle cream she uses. She can't be younger, is she??? Fuck, she's younger. Did they have to get fertility treatment? Did they adopt? Or did they try to get pregnant on their honeymoon and wham bam, it worked?

I look at Luisito and I think...what if? What if we can't, babe? Okay, so we adopt, we know this, but I wanted you and me, you know, we wanted...we wanted to do this. I wanted the baby to have your eyelashes and your nose and your thighs. Can we swing this if we can't? Can we deal with this level of disappointment? If we add this to everything we've been through will there be a giant surplus of bullshite? Will we implode?

And I feel a fear in my belly, a fear that my assumption of being able to snap my fingers and have children whenever I wanted might be being challenged. With every period now, I think, Hmmm. Okay, I guess not this month. No biggie.

"How long did it take you to get pregnant?" I quiz my sister, my sister in law, my friends.

"Oh a few months."

"We just stopped taking birth control to see what would happen."

But I feel menstrual pain like I never have before. The last time it kept me up the whole night. My periods are irregular now and fucked up and long. Things....they don't feel right.

"Acude inmediatamente al ginecologo". Go immediately to the gynecologist, my general practitioner told me, not knowing he was gonna scare the bloody life out of me by saying it with such urgency.

So I went to the gynecologist the next day and with clammy ass hands and trembling legs, and trying to act all, "No this ain't weird that my junk is all up in the air, yo. No, not at ALL. I'm cool", I mounted the handy stir-ups and offered my crotch up to the lovely phallic probe of truth, all the while chanting to myself:

Be thankful you have health insurance
Be thankful you have health insurance
Be thankful you have health insurance.

Ooof. This isn't supposed to hurt. I'm not supposed to be freakin' THE. FUCK. OUT. right now.

The doctor stared at the ultrasound and informed me that all my junk looked perfectamente normal.

Oh yeah, doc? Well, then why did you schedule me for a pelvic MRI? Then why did you make me do all those blood tests that made my arms go numb and my blood pressure drop and my lips turn blue?

Be thankful you have health insurance
Be thankful you have health insurance
Be thankful you have health insurance.

I can't find the words to express the anxiety I'm feeling. Truth be told, I have serious issues with hypochondria, and anything medical-related makes me want to either faint or barf, but I can't shake this. Because I don't know that I can deal with more disappointment (centered around myself) right now. And I'm just fucking scared that something is wrong with me.

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