At forty, alone, I had to decide whether to pursue it by myself.

I spent nine months on that.

I talked to a doctor, twice, properly, with the actual numbers, and I talked to two women who had done it, and I talked to my therapist for a very long time.

And I decided not to.

Not because it was too late and not because I had given up.

Because when I was honest with myself, in a room, on my own, with nobody’s mother in it — I found that I did not want it enough to organize the rest of my life around it.

And that turned out to be an allowed answer, which nobody had ever once told me.