Pod Insights Personally Creation Myth, Episode 6: The Nuclear Option About this episode Since she can’t decide if she should get sterilized or not, Helena asks a stranger. A guy named Sam who doesn’t have any stake in her life. Sam regretted having his kid. He didn’t realize at the time what he was getting into, what he would be giving up. But he understood the moment his son was born. So when Helena asks, “Should I have a kid or no?” Sam is ready for it, “I thought you'd never ask.”
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Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 For most of the history of professional sports, there was a wall between the game and gambling. Then suddenly, it was everywhere.
0:09 Speaker 01 Ontario is all in on sports betting.
0:12 Speaker 02 You could win a shipload of money.
0:14 Speaker 00 But that wasn't supposed to include the players themselves.
0:18 Speaker 03 Rappers for Jontay Porter is under NBA investigation.
0:21 Speaker 04 Athletes are the perfect gamblers.
0:24 Speaker 00 Understood the Big Bet. Available now wherever you get your podcasts.
0:31 Speaker 05 This is a CBC Podcast.
0:44 Speaker 06 I don't remember this because I was six years old when it happened and asleep upstairs. But my parents were downstairs, watching on their tiny black and white TV.
0:58 Speaker 06 It was 1989 and the Berlin Wall was finally open.
1:06 Speaker 06 Hundreds then thousands of East Berliners were streaming west through the checkpoints, in cars, on foot. The guards were not shooting. If anything, they looked confused.
1:18 Speaker 06 After nearly 30 years of being separated by concrete, West Berliners were climbing 12 feet to the top of the wall and helped up any East Berliners who couldn't quite get up there themselves.
1:32 Speaker 06 Young men, wearing t-shirts despite the November cold, were slamming chisels with hammers, trying to break the reinforced stones.
1:43 Speaker 06 A woman with her feet dangling over the side of the wall was spraying the crowd with champagne.
1:52 Speaker 06 My mother was watching with tears rolling down her cheeks. She couldn't believe it. That cruel wall was coming down.
2:08 Speaker 06 My mother felt the wall in a way my father didn't, because she'd seen it in person, seven years before. This was before I was born. Why she took the trip, she couldn't tell me. The wall had just seemed absurd. On the news, it was a fat, black line on a map. But what about the people who lived there, who had to see it every day? So my mother had traveled to Berlin to see it for herself.
2:40 Speaker 06 The experience had never stopped haunting her.
2:45 Speaker 06 Miles of thick concrete, running ramshaws through homes that had been boarded up and over tram tracks that could no longer be used. On the eastern side, there was a no man's land, maybe 300 feet deep, with barbed wire, dogs, and watchtowers, manned by armed guards who were ordered to shoot on sight if you did as much as enter that zone.
3:09 Speaker 06 One night, my mother went back. The dogs were howling, pulling their chains. They must have heard something, someone.
3:21 Speaker 06 And then, seven years later, it all ended.
3:28 Speaker 06 Political prisoners were released. Family and friends were reunited. Europe was whole again.
3:37 Speaker 06 I could never see the footage without crying. And my parents had seen it live on the news. They had seen these usually stoic Germans
3:47 Speaker 01 Menschen, die euphorisch waren.
3:50 Speaker 06 Euphoric.
3:51 Speaker 01 Jeder will jeder in ihre Arme.
3:53 Speaker 06 Falling into each other's arms.
3:56 Speaker 06 So my mother told my dad,
3:58 Speaker 01 Kom, da müssen wir sein.
3:59 Speaker 06 We have to be there. Yeah.
4:03 Speaker 06 I was curious what she imagined doing once we were there.
4:06 Speaker 04 Je komt aan en dan wat?
4:08 Speaker 01 Hij feest mij.
4:09 Speaker 06 "Join the party," she said.
4:11 Speaker 01 Zo simpel is dat.
4:12 Speaker 06 "Simple as that."
4:16 Speaker 06 But my dad didn't think it was simple.
4:19 Speaker 01 Die zei ook aan de.
4:20 Speaker 06 The drive was long, eight hours. We kids were young, six and three. Money was tight, so a hotel was probably out of the question.
4:29 Speaker 01 Ja, dat is zo niet handig geweest, zeg.
4:30 Speaker 06 My mom was not worried. "If we have to," she told my dad, "we'll sleep in the car, or we don't sleep."
4:38 Speaker 01 Maar ik wou niet.
4:39 Speaker 06 But my dad did not want to go. And we never went.
4:45 Speaker 06 I asked my mom if they got into an argument.
4:48 Speaker 04 En hebben jullie daar ruzie gemaakt of hoe ging dat dan?
4:51 Speaker 06 But she told me they didn't.
4:52 Speaker 01 Ik was heel teleuristeld.
4:54 Speaker 06 "I was very disappointed," she said.
4:56 Speaker 01 Wow.
4:57 Speaker 06 But she also thought, "Maybe he's right."
4:59 Speaker 01 Misschien heeft hij wel gelijk, het is niet zo praktisch, hè?
5:02 Speaker 06 It isn't practical to put your sleeping kids in the car, drive all night.
5:08 Speaker 06 And, you know, my mom said.
5:09 Speaker 01 Dat is iets rationeler dan ik.
5:12 Speaker 06 "Your dad is more rational than I am."
5:17 Speaker 06 That word, "rational," really stuck in my ear. All good things are irrational. Love, for starters. But so much else. Throwing a party, learning to play chess, nursing an orchid. It's a hassle. Life is one big hassle. But what is the alternative? Sitting on the couch? That's what my dad did. I'd always promised myself I would be different.
5:49 Speaker 06 It turned out, I was not.
5:56 Speaker 06 I'm Helena de Groot, and from CBC's Personally, this is Creation Myth.
6:15 Speaker 06 There was going to be a solar eclipse. Brendan loved that kind of thing. Stars, planets, meteor showers, asteroids racing through the solar system. He loved it, both for the science and because he was very romantic. He told me, "I've never seen a solar eclipse. It would be beautiful to see it with you." I knew the next one within driving distance was not soon, 2070 something. I would be close to 100, or dead. Brendan was right, we should go. Then I started thinking about the practical side.
6:59 Speaker 06 The eclipse was three minutes, the drive, six hours. We didn't have money for an Airbnb, so we'd be sleeping in a tent in the snow. My whole body tensed up. I knew it was special, but I just couldn't do it. So just like my dad, I said no. Then, the most ridiculous thing happened.
7:31 Speaker 06 A teeny, tiny earthquake hit New York. On social media, someone posted a picture of the damage in their yard on Long Island. A plastic lawn chair had fallen over. That was pretty much the extent of it. But I had felt it. Tectonic plates had vibrated my floorboards and rattled my windows. Life on Earth was a miracle. Three days later, at 3:02 PM, Brendan and I were sitting on a blanket by a lake, ready with our special glasses. Oh, wow.
8:14 Speaker 06 The sky was cloudy, and the guy behind us wouldn't stop yapping. But here we were, leaning into each other while looking up, feeding each other snacks.
8:29 Speaker 06 What is that about? That's what the shadow has to reach, yeah. I tried to remind myself that you have to say yes to things to say yes to miracles.
8:41 Speaker 06 And I knew about the greatest miracle of all. I'd heard it over and over and over again. The greatest miracle you could ever experience when you were alive on planet Earth was... Yep.
9:00 Speaker 06 Then it was late June.
9:04 Speaker 06 I had four more days to decide if I was going to get my tubes tied. Four days. What the hell was I doing? I had gone over this with my therapist, Brendan, my friends.
9:17 Speaker 06 I only saw one option.
9:22 Speaker 06 The nuclear option.
9:25 Speaker 06 I would ask a stranger. Let them decide.
9:31 Speaker 06 In 2002, Ryan Wedding was an Olympic snowboarder at the top of his game. Ryan's style is really gunning it in gold. And in less than a minute, it slipped away. But he continued to chase the high. Ryan James Wedding. He controls one of the most violent drug trafficking organizations in this world. I'm Michelle Shepherd and from CBC Podcasts and The Toronto Star, The Most Wanted Olympian. Available now.
10:04 Speaker 06 Here was my plan.
10:09 Speaker 06 Since clearly I couldn't decide if I should get sterilized or have a kid, I would ask someone who knew nothing about me, had no stake in my life, and wouldn't mince words.
10:24 Speaker 06 Hello? Okay.
10:27 Speaker 01 Can you hear me?
10:28 Speaker 06 I can. We knew each other, but barely. He was an artist of some kind. And years before, I'd been hired to engineer an interview with him. All I had done was check the levels, hit record, and then stared into the middle distance for a few hours while someone on the other side of the country asked questions. But some form of communication must have passed between us. Because once the recording was over, neither of us got up to leave. We started talking and didn't stop. Especially I didn't stop because I was in a great mood. This was back when David and I had only just moved to New York.
11:12 Speaker 06 I could not believe the creative projects I got to work on, following nothing but my own curiosity.
11:21 Speaker 06 I couldn't know that my stories reminded him of the life he once lived, wished he could still live, that I was twisting the knife. He almost never talked about his situation. But now he did. He had a three-year-old. And he hated being a dad.
11:46 Speaker 06 We talked for maybe an hour and a half. And then we never talked again. So I didn't know how he'd been all this time. I certainly didn't know that he was now living abroad with his family, him, his wife, and their kid. All I knew was that somewhere deep in my emails from five years before, I still had his contact info. I didn't tell him what I was recruiting him for, that he was going to decide if I was going to have a kid or get my tubes tied. I just asked, like a normal person, if he'd be on my podcast. Sam, let's call him Sam, agreed almost immediately on one condition.
12:31 Speaker 01 I want zero traceable facts to me. I'm doing this for the sake of truth and something that's been inside of me for a very long time.
12:40 Speaker 06 I found a filter that made his voice unrecognizable. We also came up with a cover. Can I say that you're an artist?
12:48 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think maybe I'm a DJ. What about that?
12:51 Speaker 06 Ooh, I like that DJ.
12:52 Speaker 01 And instead, San Francisco.
12:55 Speaker 06 Sure, Sam is a DJ in San Francisco.
12:57 Speaker 01 I am like so clear on that, dude. I will fucking give you all the dirt of Sam as a DJ from San Francisco.
13:03 Speaker 06 Sam.
13:04 Speaker 01 Well, he's in Australia.
13:06 Speaker 06 Can I know? Oh, my God, he sounds so douchey, though.
13:10 Speaker 01 He does sound kind of douchey. Let me know if that works for you.
13:16 Speaker 06 I was happy to see him again on my computer screen. He hadn't changed much. Maybe his hair was gray, but that only added to his charm. He said the same about me, that I hadn't changed. I knew he was lying, but why let the truth get in the way of a compliment? Once we traded a few of those back and forth, I got down to business. Because I knew some things about his experiences with parenthood, but not the basics. Like, how did he even decide to have a kid?
13:48 Speaker 01 I mean, everyone was kind of having kids at that time, you know? It was like newly married. I didn't really necessarily even want a baby. But we're like, let's just do it because we're getting too old. You know? It's not a small decision, and I know that most people know that. And I wish I understood it at the time.
14:08 Speaker 06 But he understood the moment his son was born.
14:12 Speaker 01 I saw my son, and I did not feel good. I had postpartum. My wife did not.
14:19 Speaker 06 Did she know?
14:20 Speaker 01 Not in the first six months or so. It's too hectic in the first six months. But soon after that, she felt it, and we talked about it a lot. She gave me an out.
14:29 Speaker 06 She did?
14:30 Speaker 01 Yep.
14:34 Speaker 01 Because I was crying in my car a lot because I was very unhappy.
14:39 Speaker 06 Did you get angry? Like, were you angry with your wife? Were you angry with yourself? Like, did you?
14:44 Speaker 01 I was angry myself. I was not angry with my wife. I was not angry with my child.
14:50 Speaker 01 I was not mad at him. It was me, dude. You didn't think this through, you fucking idiot. You have to go make a shit ton of money right now. Money is not a. Thing that I did really well. That was not one of my things, you know? And that's an important part of fucking raising a child in America.
15:05 Speaker 06 So instead of traveling the country and playing in front of large crowds of people every night, Sam got a real job, not just because it paid better, but because kids need stability.
15:19 Speaker 01 And stability usually deals with repetition, right? It's tied up in repetition and constants, right?
15:26 Speaker 06 Yeah.
15:26 Speaker 01 And so it's fucking boring.
15:30 Speaker 01 But I realized too late that if you're bored, like you have a kid, you have a wife and you're at home and you're eating dinner and it's fucking Tuesday, you're doing it right.
15:41 Speaker 01 It sucks to be you because you're fucking bored and your life was the opposite of anything remotely close to what it is now. I used to thrive on literally, how do I make every day different? Look at your life, right? Look at your life in New York when I met you. This was part of the envy that I felt. You were like walking around town, doing your thing with a microphone. You loved New York. You were on your adventure. You were thinking of ideas for your next project, right? Like, all of that stuff is off the table. Like, you're not walking around thinking of your next project. That part gets consumed, if not temporarily, then permanently, you know, or plenipotent at least permanently.
16:21 Speaker 06 Permanently? That's interesting.
16:24 Speaker 01 So when I met you, I felt like I fucked up.
16:29 Speaker 01 I felt like, not that having a kid is wrong, just that for me, I hadn't, I had not done the research, man. I hadn't done the research to know what I would be giving up.
16:43 Speaker 01 What if you give everything up and it's not what you thought it would be?
16:46 Speaker 06 What did you think it would be?
16:47 Speaker 01 I don't know. I didn't, I didn't connect with him the way that my wife did.
16:54 Speaker 01 And I thought that I would.
16:56 Speaker 06 Did you think it was like gonna be a package deal like you were gonna be a parent and you were gonna feel like a parent?
17:02 Speaker 01 I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell you something outrageously ridiculous. But the, the night before my wife had the baby, I masturbated and I genuinely thought to myself, well, that's the last time I'm gonna do that. Gonna have a kid tomorrow.
17:18 Speaker 06 You were like, I'll probably won't have time for this or?
17:21 Speaker 01 I don't think it's time. It's just like, I'm gonna be in another zone of just life. And it's gonna be amazing and I will be a new version of myself.
17:31 Speaker 01 That's where my head was at. I was like, once the kid comes, I'm not gonna wanna do this anymore. I'm a parent now.
17:39 Speaker 06 And how quickly?
17:40 Speaker 01 Honestly, I'm saying it out loud. It's fucking stupid. Just what are you interviewing me for? I'm like a moron.
17:46 Speaker 06 But we all are. Oh, my God. I connect to this so deeply. Seriously.
17:57 Speaker 06 I recognized this desire for transformation. That's what I was promised too. The moment I laid eyes on my child, something would happen. Physics itself would split my atoms and release an endless capacity for self-sacrifice and a desire to delete TikTok and learn about the trees in the neighborhood instead.
18:19 Speaker 06 How quickly after you became a parent, did you realize, oh, wow, I am not that different person that I thought I'd be?
18:28 Speaker 01 Oh, it's so brutal. Well, it never happened, right? So there was just, you have the kid, you take them home, it's chaos. And I'm like waiting for this moment to where I'm like, oh, you keep putting it up. Well, maybe it's just the first two weeks, the first six weeks. There's always these fucking guidelines, you know? You go, oh, well, in six weeks, we'll probably be like, we're out of this really hard part and I'll feel that other thing once the baby's sleeping through the night.
18:51 Speaker 06 Sure.
18:51 Speaker 01 Oh, he has a rash. Okay, when the rash goes away, he'll probably sleep better and then we'll be able to get in the zone of what our life is really gonna be like.
18:58 Speaker 06 Yeah.
18:58 Speaker 01 And honestly, until he started school, by the way, which was fucking awesome.
19:05 Speaker 01 Go learn some shit and go, someone else take care of this person for like a day. Cause she doubts when you're like, oh, this is, this is what life is like. And it's not because I don't want to be with my kid, dude. It's just that your life, there's a fucking kid dropped in the middle of your house, man. Your life with your partner who you love. And now there's a kid there and then you're both like, what the fuck do we do? No one's there to help you. No one's, I got it. Why don't you guys go get a coffee? Like no one's there. You deal with that for like five years. Yeah. Which changes both of you.
19:33 Speaker 06 Yeah.
19:34 Speaker 01 And then they go away and you're like, holy fucking, we made it.
19:39 Speaker 01 That's definitely a finish line, like the first finish line. There's six weeks thing, six months is bullshit. You're fucking dealing with a kid. It's hard. But then they go to school and you're like, okay, now you get like five hours a day back, man.
19:55 Speaker 06 I want to go back to something that you said earlier. You said that, you know, you talked to your wife and you said that she gave you an out. Did you ever consider that?
20:08 Speaker 01 I couldn't do it. I just, it just seemed like you're just, like, first of all, you're just, you're being a dick. I had the baby on purpose, man. It's not like it was an accident.
20:17 Speaker 01 Do you know what I mean?
20:18 Speaker 06 Sure.
20:18 Speaker 01 See it through, motherfucker. Like, you know, this is too big a deal. This is, this is two lives you're gonna fuck up. For what? For what, man?
20:31 Speaker 06 I have to say, I was surprised that Sam had not left his family. Plenty of dads leave. It's not great, but you can be a dad and leave and people will still talk to you. But if you're a mom and you walk out on your family, the smear campaign will chase you out of town. Maybe you'd even have to change your name. Moms have to stay, even if that means that the rest of your life might be filled with regret.
20:59 Speaker 06 The rest of your life.
21:03 Speaker 01 To that point, you and asked me, but I'm telling you, just we're on a fucking podcast. So here we go. If you asked me when my kid was three, if I regret it, I would have said yes. If you ask me now, I would say no.
21:25 Speaker 06 Oh, wow. Why?
21:29 Speaker 01 My kid just got older, honestly.
21:31 Speaker 06 And your kid is what, eight now, right?
21:33 Speaker 01 He's eight, yeah.
21:34 Speaker 06 Yeah.
21:35 Speaker 01 It, it, you know what? I started to get returns on my investment and that's a stupid fucking way to say it. But like, your kid gets older and they start fucking doing shit. Instead of just sitting around fucking playing with wood toys, like they, they start like doing stuff. And that's a super narcissistic perspective that my kid's finally giving back to me. But fuck you, I gave everything for four fucking years. Now the kid's like, hey dad, let's go to that, let's go to your favorite, like Thai food. You love Thai food.
22:08 Speaker 06 Yeah.
22:09 Speaker 01 You know, or like, dad, do you know any riddles? You go to the store, you buy like 600 books on riddles, like you just hang out all that. Because now you're engaging with the fucking person, you know?
22:21 Speaker 06 Yeah, yeah.
22:22 Speaker 01 I like to engage with people. That's why you and I got on, we were engaging each other, you know? I can't stand people who I can't fucking engage with in a, in a real way. And a child is one of those people for the first four years. And mind you, you gave up everything. There's definitely might be people who have had children who might be like, this is like, this guy's a fucking asshole. And let me tell you, you're having a great experience. I'm happy for you. You're connected with your child out the gate. And when you're connected to them in that way, everything's engagement. Even when they're crying and fucking being annoying or doing some dumb shit or ignoring you. It's still engagement. I see my wife, she has the connection, she is always connected.
23:02 Speaker 01 It wasn't the case and it might not be the case for some people.
23:07 Speaker 06 If there was a way for you to reach through time, what would you tell you before you had a kid?
23:15 Speaker 01 Fuck.
23:19 Speaker 01 What I would say is like, people who have kids experience more joy and more pain than people who don't. It's not better or worse, dude.
23:29 Speaker 01 You're starting a long arc when you have a kid. Like, it's a long arc, man. And you will not have that if you don't have a kid.
23:37 Speaker 01 That's not a threat, that's just a fact. You won't have this like, well, fuck, now I have a kid, you have to go through all the shit, all of it. The first three years suck, the next four years are, find the school, blah, blah, blah, figure out who they are, keep them safe. And then like 20 years later, they go to college, maybe, seems like they would if they were your kid. Is your job over? No.
23:59 Speaker 01 That's the thing I used to cry about, is that it's never gonna be over. It's an unchangeable fact. But also, you have, for the rest of your life, you have this person.
24:09 Speaker 06 Yeah.
24:09 Speaker 01 If all goes according to plan. Not to help you or whatever, but like, to guide them, you get to see their life, you get to build their life, you get to inform them of the shit, you know?
24:21 Speaker 01 But also, it never goes away, and their responsibility never goes away.
24:23 Speaker 06 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:24 Speaker 01 You know, like, it's fucking scary and annoying, and it's there forever, forever.
24:31 Speaker 01 God, it weighs so much, it weighs so much, man.
24:35 Speaker 06 And you grew stronger, or the weight got less, or what?
24:38 Speaker 01 I mean, I definitely grew stronger. I definitely rose to the occasion, especially in the last few years, I just feel like I'm up for it.
24:47 Speaker 01 But if I became a better person, I did it reluctantly, let me say that.
24:58 Speaker 06 Reluctant or not, Sam had been transformed in a pretty big way, too. He was no longer the guy toiling away at a job he hated, in a city he hated. Also, he could take care of a family he regretted having. He changed pretty much everything. Packed up his life, moved across the ocean. And now he lived with his family in a country with great beaches and socialized healthcare, which allowed him to get his music career back on track.
25:30 Speaker 06 And those feelings of regret were gone.
25:34 Speaker 06 It took years, and it hadn't been easy. But wasn't that every transformation? You were confronted with something hard, and then you rose to the occasion?
25:49 Speaker 06 I know that people don't, that they can't give advice about this, but I'm asking you. Should I have a kid or no?
26:03 Speaker 01 I thought you'd never ask.
26:07 Speaker 01 Dude, you know what? No one's ever fucking asked that directly, and I think people should. Not because you're gonna take my advice, but I think fucking information is important. If I had information earlier, I would at least been able to fucking do the, like, manage it, dude.
26:25 Speaker 06 Yeah.
26:25 Speaker 01 You know, I didn't have the information to fucking manage it. And that made it really hard for my wife, and I wasn't a great dad in those early years.
26:38 Speaker 01 So I think that's smart to ask that question. I think people should fucking walk around asking that question to different people. Do you think I should have a kid? Tell me about your situation. What is the reality of your situation?
26:51 Speaker 01 So let's answer your question. It's a fucking great question. My lord. Do you want a kid?
27:01 Speaker 06 The story has always been no. I'm just wondering to what degree it's just a story.
27:07 Speaker 01 Definitely just a story. There is no truth, right? And ultimately,
27:14 Speaker 01 you'll never know the answer to that. Right? You can have a baby, be like, what the fuck? I should have had three of these
27:21 Speaker 01 10 years ago. God damn it. But are you bored?
27:25 Speaker 06 Now?
27:26 Speaker 01 Yes.
27:27 Speaker 06 No.
27:29 Speaker 01 You're shit on your plate that you're excited about?
27:31 Speaker 06 Very.
27:33 Speaker 01 What's your financials?
27:35 Speaker 06 Bad.
27:36 Speaker 01 Your parents are in Belgium?
27:38 Speaker 06 Yes.
27:39 Speaker 01 Any family nearby?
27:41 Speaker 06 No.
27:42 Speaker 01 There's bad foot to start it up. Bad financials, no family in my, in my. People move home for a fucking reason, Helena. They don't do it because they failed. They move home because they fucking are like, I need help. Are you OK with moving back to Belgium?
27:57 Speaker 06 No. And my partner's from Minneapolis and I am also not very drawn to the Midwest.
28:02 Speaker 01 Fuck that. Fuck that. Minneapolis is a great city, just to be totally clear. But a New Yorker leaving to go to Minneapolis to raise a kid? Dude, I don't know. My bets are fucking, they're not on your side of the line, Ian. I'm not saying this is the right answer, dude. I'm just saying you're a great candidate for my speech, which is be fucking careful
28:28 Speaker 01 because it's hard in ways that you can't see.
28:30 Speaker 06 Yeah.
28:31 Speaker 01 The truth is, sister, and I just, I mean this, man, you can't know.
28:39 Speaker 01 You can't fucking know what you're gonna feel. That's the risk that I've been talking about this whole time. That's what I realize when I cry in my car. How could I have fucking known this?
28:49 Speaker 01 I don't know, man. You're at the fucking precipice, man. It's whether or not you want to jump. And you won't be wrong either way. You will be, let me say this.
28:59 Speaker 01 You will be disappointed either way.
29:02 Speaker 06 I love this. I love how you, yes, I relate to your like, let's land on the negative. I'm the same, but I think it's.
29:08 Speaker 01 That's not negative, dude.
29:10 Speaker 06 It's not negative?
29:11 Speaker 01 I fully reach, I disagree with you.
29:13 Speaker 06 Okay.
29:14 Speaker 01 It's just factual.
29:17 Speaker 01 10 years from now, you're either gonna have a 10 year old.
29:20 Speaker 06 Yeah.
29:20 Speaker 01 Might be in Belgium and feel okay about it.
29:23 Speaker 06 Yeah.
29:24 Speaker 01 Or you'll be in New York, wondering what life would be like.
29:28 Speaker 06 Yeah.
29:31 Speaker 06 But do you think I wouldn't wonder either way?
29:33 Speaker 01 That's what I'm saying. What's the fucking stories written?
29:37 Speaker 06 Yeah, yeah.
29:37 Speaker 01 All you can wonder is what if the pages were a fucking different story, man?
29:41 Speaker 06 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
29:42 Speaker 01 That's a logistical infrastructure problem about life. Because then, once it passes you, you can't fucking change it. And you can always question it.
29:52 Speaker 06 Yeah.
29:54 Speaker 01 So there's no really wrong answer.
29:56 Speaker 06 Yeah.
30:03 Speaker 06 We'd been talking for nearly three hours. My brain was mush. So I wrapped up the conversation. All right.
30:12 Speaker 01 We're good?
30:13 Speaker 06 Yeah, we're good. You can hit stop on the recorder.
30:18 Speaker 01 Okay.
30:19 Speaker 06 All right.
30:20 Speaker 01 And then like, just try to pick a path that makes sense.
30:25 Speaker 01 Yeah, sadness is inevitable, man. It's life. It will be regret, dude. But you're gonna be okay.
30:50 Speaker 06 I closed my laptop and opened the door of my closet. Cool air rushed in.
30:59 Speaker 06 What if that was all there was to it? Just pick a path and deal with whatever sadness and regret comes up? Because they did come up. All it took was a baby and sunglasses, or a picture of Brendan as a five-year-old rock star singing his heart out in the fire poker. And each time, I'd taken that pinch in my heart as a sign that I was making a mistake. But what if it was not a sign? Just a feeling that I could have and then let go? Asked so often with a profound insight, it seemed obvious once I had it.
31:42 Speaker 06 It was almost embarrassing, like a headline in The Onion. "Local Woman Has Complicated Feelings About Complicated Question." I was a smart person. I could handle complexity. Why had it taken me so long to accept my complicated feelings around having kids? Maybe because I'd been forced into a simple stance by people trying to convince me, and me saying for years and years, "Nope, don't want them," and "Yep, absolutely sure." Who was the first person who'd said I was making a mistake? Maybe the man I happened to sit next to on a packed train when I was 20 or 21.
32:26 Speaker 06 "You'll never know love as profound," he'd say. Then there was the doctor who'd refused to tie my tubes, my closest friends, Sigrid and Joshua, and of course, David. More than anything else, it was his years-long pressure campaign that had turned me militant. I couldn't afford to share my moments of doubt with him. He'd have held them over me until I caved. But I was no longer under attack. Joshua and Sigrid had come round. David and I had divorced. Brendan believed me. A new doctor was ready to tie my tubes.
33:08 Speaker 06 Maybe with no one pushing me to be sure, I no longer had to pretend I was.
33:17 Speaker 06 So maybe that's how it would be. I would always feel some doubt. And even surgery would not fix that. I made a note to cancel the appointment. Then I walked into my living room. The ivy in front of my windows was casting shadows on the wall. It was hard to resist making shapes with my fingers, a duck, a rabbit, a wolf. But it felt a little silly without a kid to entertain. Maybe that's one of the reasons people have kids, to marvel at something like shadows without feeling like a goof.
34:01 Speaker 06 But we all liked shadows. Isn't that why, a few months before, thousands of people had traveled to the path of totality, paying an arm and a leg for a hotel or an Airbnb, or shivering in a tent? All so we could spend three minutes marveling at the shadow of our little moon as it slid perfectly over the giant sun. And kids are a miracle. But so are we. The light had changed and the shadows were gone.
34:43 Speaker 06 But I was here, alive on a planet filled with miracles. All I had to do was get off my couch. Creation myth is written, produced, hosted, and sound designed by me, Helena de Groot. My story editor and senior producer is Veronica Simmons. Editorial sound design support by Brendan Baker, who also mixed and mastered the episode.
35:27 Speaker 06 Special thanks to Sam for making the brutal truth this funny and for becoming my friend. And special thanks to my mother, Annika van de Veld, for showing me how to seize the moment, whether it's the Berlin Wall coming down or just a sunny day. And I want to thank both my parents for never pressuring me to have kids.
35:53 Speaker 06 The team behind Creation Myth further includes Anna Ashite, who is our coordinating producer. Executive producers are Cecil Fernandez and Chris Oak. Tanya Springer is the senior manager. Arif Noorani is the director and Lesley Merklinger is the executive director of CBC Podcasts. The audio of the Berlin Wall coming down is from ITN Archive. This project was made possible with the support of VPM Media Corporation. I'll be back next week with a new episode. But while you're waiting, there is something else in the personally feed for you. A show titled "Shortsighted." The person who made it, Graham Isador, is losing his vision and finding a layer to
36:38 Speaker 06 life he never knew existed. You should check it out. And I'll see you next week. And if you want to binge the whole series ad-free, you can subscribe to our CBC Stories Premium channel on Apple Podcasts. Just click the link in the show description.
36:59 Speaker 05 For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca/podcasts.
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