Sorry for the lack of posts this month, but I was invited to start volunteering in another, more political capacity with PP and jumped at the opportunity. I've had to attend frequent meetings over the past few weeks that have left little time for much else other than quick Facebook updates.

The pro-choice monster inside me has been awakened and now will not seem to rest.

I'm writing because even though I've been super busy, I'm sitting here marveling at my own contentment...smug bastard that I apparently am.

It all started when my mom called to talk to me about throwing a party for my 30th birthday this summer. I'm traveling back East to spend the milestone with family and my mom is INSISTENT upon having a party for me.

We got to talking about where I am at this point in my life and she made a remark about how happy and satisfied I seem with life, and how shocked she is that I'm not panicking in the face of the big 3-0.

I had nothing cynical or sarcastic to respond with either, which never happens! It was only a few short years ago that I broke down crying to her over the phone on my 26th birthday because I felt OLD.

*Don't judge me, I had just moved 2000 miles away from my family and I was emotionally fragile!*

But now? I'm actually feeling pretty alright about entering my 30's.

As much as I usually roll my eyes at shiny, happy, smiling people, I feel like I may be becoming one and I honestly think I owe it all to childfreedom.

This is not to discount any of the other good things in my life.

I'm not by any means independently wealthy but I make well above the median household income and experienced a $19k increase in salary after switching jobs in 2008. I have goooood stock options and a fab job at a totally liberal, FUN company. I work with (mostly) very engaging, intelligent people whose company I genuinely enjoy. I have fun opting into and out of dating at any random point in time. I spend a lot of time with friends. I've found fulfilling volunteer work and social activism to engage in. I've been able to travel and have pretty extensive plans for future travel. I have little debt and very few obligations in general.

But take away my childfreedom and each of those things is automatically less enjoyable or even impossible.

With children comes debt so I could kiss my fairly debt free lifestyle goodbye. The salary increase wouldn't mean as much with kids around to eat into it.

Children are time stealers so goodbye fun outings with friends, goodbye to all the time I spend volunteering. ( Oh and I've noticed almost ALL of the other people I volunteer with are also childless!)

Children are sucky travel companions so that would be out the window for sure. No more hooking up with Caribbean hotties on the beach with a baby in it's sand filled diaper sitting nearby looking all helpless and neglected!

Really though, nearly every aspect of what I enjoy about my life would be severely diminished if I had a kid.

It should be no wonder why I'm so happy and "satisfied" with life as my mother put it.

I've gotten to the stage where I'm so thrilled and grateful to be childfree that even aging doesn't bug me that much anymore!

Part of it must be this surge of so many people I know having kids...?

In the last year alone, four women in my life have become mothers. I've been privy to all the drama on Facebook and I have seen their lives change in totally unenviable ways. The end result of all this? Me being happier in my own life.

Crazy!

Maybe I had my logic wrong in a previous post when I felt it wasn't worth being friends with people in the process of having kids. Perhaps surrounding myself with people who are having kids is actually a good thing. It gives me the much needed reality check that yes my life is actually pretty fucking spectacular in comparison to the alternative.

Watching them have kids only makes me that much happier not to have any of my own!

Schadenfreude is often seen as something we should be ashamed of, but I think it can actually really be effective in making us all a lot more grateful and cognizant of how good we have it.