I never really wanted anything in life.

Not really, not passionately. Maybe I wanted a new Barbie doll when I was a child, or wanted to stay up later to watch TV, or wanted to skip school, or stay out longer with my boyfriend. I “wanted” to be a stewardess and an Egyptologist, but only with a child’s understanding of what those things are. But I never really felt a drive to be something. I was never drawn to a profession, or a certain kind of life, or felt a calling. I wanted things that were easy, that weren’t risky, that didn’t call any attention to me.

I used to drive my mother crazy by saying “it doesn’t matter” or “whatever” to everything: where I went to college, what I studied, where we went for dinner, where I got married, the color of the napkins at the wedding reception. “It all matters,” she would say, and I would just roll my eyes. Saying “it doesn’t matter” made me look cool, easy, flexible, I thought. And I was, sure. But I also allowed decisions to be made for me—by life, by circumstances, by the people around me. I moved, gave up graduate school, bought cars and houses with that attitude, and while they all sort of worked out in the end, my cool indifference made me feel powerless.

And then I had a baby. I hate to admit it, but initially even that decision was sort of “meh” for me. I don’t remember an overwhelming urge to become a mother—it just seemed like the next logical thing to do.

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