Thanks for this. It brings up all the feels. I’m child-free and first it was by choice and then it was by pituitary tumor, and then again by rebellious, painful choice because it was going to be difficult so I’d harumph that I didn’t want them anyway, so there. But in being child-free I have friends who are older and their kids are off to college, or friends who are younger who have yet to have children — and they tend to two-by-two disappear into the peripheal once the first-born comes, and then move to the ‘burbs once they decide to have a second and so on, and so on… my friends who are older are great but in a different phase of their lives, have more money to spend, travel, and I’m not quite there yet, the younger see me as the wise one in the group and yet I’m working going on five years educating myself a new field of my occupation (first actor, then crew and now writer), so not fitting in and always trying to find my tribe has been a life-long endeavour. I tend to advertise myself wrong. Some assume I’m a mother, or can’t quite figure out why I’m not, what’s wrong with me? People can’t quite figure out where I fit, I’m older on paper, but younger in spirit (let’s face it, I’ve had a good decade more sleep than the average woman with children my age). Today marks a day I want to rebel, not be gentle, or kind or mature, I want to drink one too many cocktails and go “fuck it” and appreciate my partner getting me flowers and a coffee from my cats. But there’s a void, I fill it with creativity and stories and world building and yet — on days like today, I just need to know there’s others out there just maybe with the same ‘pang’ of lonely. Thank you.