The first moment when your baby kicks is called a quickening. You suppose there are people who know that, instinctively, the way you know what the word bark means though you don’t remember learning it; people for whom babies and all the peculiar words that belong just to them aren’t a foreign language. The word doesn’t make you think of babies, but of Highlander – large muscle-bound men waving swords, lightning from the sky. Apocalyptic. Unstoppable. Irreversible.
A quickening.
Everything speeds up from this moment on, your entire life hurtling past like scenery on the dip of a coaster, an existence spent chasing moments, desperate momentum driving towards the moment when you can unclench your fierce guiding grip and hold your arms slowly away, watching them take their first individuated steps, days and weeks and years in the future, a blur of happiness and sadness and your own life strapped into the hurtling car. There’s no time for second thoughts anymore, no time for questions, no going back or going up or going away, not without leaving a part of yourself behind.
You never wanted kids.
But accidents happen and you have no one to blame but yourself, and some quiet voice in the back of your mind thinks maybe you wanted this all along; wanted the comfort of a second life in your arms without the responsibility of “I chose this.” Now you will have the sympathy of “making the best of it,” the helping hands of “stepping up” and “doing your best,” and you will love the kid despite your confusion and terror because sometimes “I don’t want kids” means “I don’t want kids;” but sometimes it only means “I don’t want to be my parents.”
A quickening.
It all begins here, as movement under your trembling fingers. A quickening.
Image by Holly McCrea. Holly is a visual artist from Vancouver, BC. She works with many mediums, including food colouring, traditional paints, and photo manipulation.