The Adventures of the Blind/Low Vision/Visually Impaired (BLOVI) Girl- Volume 41: Tick, Tock, the Biological Clock
This week I am somewhat fixated on the power of the biological clock and the influence it exerts over our decision making as we reach our 30’s. I am wondering how the biological clock manifest itself in the 40’s, 50’s and beyond and if men have a biological clock. That is the focus of this week’s blog. But first………………….
My WTF of the week is the hugely bizarre dream I had the other night and how it related to my physical condition when I awoke. So the gist of this dream is that an alligator about 5 feet long bit my right ankle and would not let go. So I was limping around with this alligator clamped onto my leg, trying to find someone who could get it off. Eventually they bring a stretcher but when they get there the alligator decides to let go and so they stitched up my leg. The next morning when I woke up my right leg was swollen at the ankle and I had a dull pain. Once again I integrated what was happening with my body into a dream, albeit in an utterly bizarre way. It is the same (and I hope this happens to other people) when you really have to go to the bathroom when you are sleeping and you dream you are on the john and it wakes you up just in time to go. And interestingly I can see in all my dreams. I am not visually impaired. I have even had a few dreams where I get my sight back, but in the entirety of the dream I did have my sight.
This week I can’t get enough of new endeavors. First, I bought am electronic drum set on EBay and I managed to win it without the use of ESnipe. That was very satisfying. I am awaiting my new drums and will certainly include a review of them in a later blog. The cool thing is that this is my first purchase of a musical instrument and my first experience learning to play one. I am also set to begin Tai Chi practice. I did this because the practice focuses on centering, relaxation and stress reduction and balance-all this I really need. It also gives you a better sense of your surroundings and teaches you to sense others without use of sight. I also admittedly am interested in eventually wielding a sword and large stick in a weapons class, but that will be at least six months away. In the interim it’s wax on, wax off.
I am convinced the biological clock, at least for women, leads us to make decisions that are sometimes not completely rational or healthy. For me that clock, at 33 when I finally decided that I would procreate, caused me to end a 6 year relationship with a person because I knew I did not want to have children with him. With the clock ticking I set off, although not consciously, to find a good mating partner. I even had a checklist. And when I felt I had found someone who got through the checklist, I ran headlong into a relationship, engagement and marriage all within one year. At 35 the tick was deafening and I was in a hurry. I was not following my gut, exploring my true feelings or even taking the time to really see the other person. Interestingly the big Ah Hah moment came when I was about 5 months pregnant. Too late. For others I have talked with the biological clock has led them to stay in long term relationships that they should have left because they were in their early to mid-thirties and had already invested years of time and did not want to start over. In the end we end up jumping into or staying in relationships that fulfill our need for making babies, but do not fulfill our needs or make us happy. Some of us are now the divorced moms with young children and some are struggling to keep our marriages together. It is amazing when I look back the decisions my brain made awash in hormones that told me to procreate. My friends that did not want children did not seem to rush into or stay in relationships that were not right for them.
Now, in my 40’s, I am wondering how the biological clock works. I do not want any more children, so I am beginning to think that the biological clock has just become a clock-the march of time. And the biological clock, for those of us who chose to have children, is now also the mothering instinct where decisions are made in order to do what’s best for your child, but also, because of age and wisdom, what is right for you. For me, I think about the aspect of time in general, and what I want to spend the rest of my active years doing and with whom I want to share that with. Now, as I have spoken about before, the focus is on having a full and balanced life and a person to share and witness that life. Maybe that is key as you realize that half your life is over and how many years you will have good health is an unknown.
I also wonder how the biological clock works in men. Do they seek about suitable mating partners at a certain phase of life? Because men can procreate much longer I do notice that they are not as in a big of a hurry. That seems liberating to me. And how is the biological clock related to the mid-life crisis. As Olympia Dukakis so eloquently puts it in the movie Moonstruck (one of my favorites of all time) it is because men fear death. So it is the march of time, the loss of virility, the desire to be young. As a woman, I am just guessing all this. Really I have no clue what leads men to buy expensive toys and trade wives for younger models—unless they fear death and decrepitude and are trying to stop that clock that ages us and marches us toward the end of our lives on earth.
In the end I think the lesson is to learn from our past, figure out what is important to us and how we want to live our lives, and live life fully without fear and with no regrets. Sounds like a plan.
Keep Moving Forward,
Beth (BLOVI) Medlock
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