Forgive me, for I have not shouted

WARNING: The following is unrated due to the graphic nature of unashamed feelings. Cursing and honest truth involved. Viewing discretion is advised.


When I announce that I have “big news”, the first thing people assume is that I’m pregnant.

Really? 

I couldn’t possibly mean that I have been offered a promotion in my job. It couldn’t mean fantastic changes in a career, success in school, opportunities in business or even an announcement that we are getting a dog.

No.

Big news = Pregnancy

*facepalm

Have I failed? Has my life become so bleak in the nine-to-five editorial position that no one assumes career changes are in the realm of My Fantastic Possibilities?

Is my career simply the hiccup-hiatus to the wonderful world of mommyness that surely awaits?

Maybe the world is not deaf; maybe I have been too quiet.

I need to change my actions so that when I shout that “I have great news”, the possibilities of what such greatness could be is not an automatic assumption on the part of my audience. 

I’m going to give my audience--those to whom I would share good news with first--the benefit of the doubt. I choose to believe they are not stuck in the world of boxed-in gender roles; I choose to believe that I am the problem. I have not made it abundantly clear that I am capable of great things; that people should assume nothing--not motherhood, career changes, academic strides, or personal epiphanies.

Assume nothing, because:

I am a writer.

I am a runner.

I am a babysitter.

I am an editor.

I am a scholar.

I am a reader.

I am a wife.

I am a friend.

I am an ambitious motherfucker.

Oh, and I am not pregnant. 

*Note - This is not a statement bashing women or motherhood, but a lament of the Automatic Assumption. 
I believe motherhood is a gift, a sacred title many are denied. I am not a feminist who looks down on those who are blessed enough to be called "mother". I do not go to war with those who choose to raise children rather than a career any more than I deify those whose arms carry babies instead of briefcases.

I am delighted that many of my friends are becoming mommies. 

Should the day come, should I ever be ready, I would be humbled to carry a child into this world. Until then, and even after, assume nothing.