I’ve always wanted to be a mom.

I assume it’s like how some people feel about religion, or a diehard favorite sports team, or a really good piece of cheesecake. It gives them purpose. It’s that thing that has them waking up in the morning going, “Yep, that’s why I’m here. This is what I’m supposed to do.”

Call it instinctual, or some strange sixth sense some of us develop — call it whatever you want really. It’s just that feeling some things give us. Like being so positive that damn piece of cheesecake will be the best thing to ever happen.

And for me, my cheesecake has always been having kids.

Even as a fairly difficult toddler, the only thing that could instantly calm me down was when my own mother would let me put my baby doll in a rocking chair. There I’d be, screaming and slobbering like some tiny tasmanian devil, and as soon as I got my motherhood on, all was fine. I would stop all my crying during these small imaginary moments of maternal action, like maybe my own pain or frustration shifted because I had something far more important to focus on.

Being a mother, I knew, would be my calling.

Lately, I keep thinking about motherhood, marriage, the things I’m personally far too young to think about. It might be due to the fact that I’m the same age my mother was when she became pregnant with me, but I can’t help from thinking how much farther along I thought I’d be in life by now. I know it’s not healthy or productive to fall into that mentality, but that doesn’t stop it from happening. And maybe even weirder are the moments I realize how much closer to motherhood I was when I was much younger.

At 18, I was wildly in love with a boy who loved me back just as fiercely. We never gave much thought to our ages or the ridiculousness that calling something puppy love somehow undermines the realness of that love. We were sure of how we felt, our futures, the two little ones we’d eventually bring into the world.

In the backseat of his blue Nissan, we’d kiss and think about baby names. I wasn’t pregnant. And by no means were we going to try. But the idea of it happening wasn’t terrifying. Because it’s what we wanted, one day.

But the idea of getting pregnant, like, today?

Holy shit. Stage 10 Freak Out. Ring The Alarm. Call Beyonce, I don’t fucking know. It would be a world of “Nooooooo.”

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t something I still think about. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a small fear in the back of my mind: “What if it won’t happen?”

My life has gone in so many directions that I could never have predicted, and honestly, that’s the thing about getting older. Shit doesn’t always go according to plan. You can create the perfect blueprint for what you expect, and babe? Life might throw you a damn curveball. And it might end up being the best thing for you. I suppose we just don’t know, do we? We can draft our five year plans and it doesn’t mean shit. Maybe it does. I don’t know that much. That’s why I know I couldn’t be a mom right now.

But I hope that, one day, I am. I won’t ever be perfect. I won’t ever have all my shit figured out (nobody does — don’t listen to anyone who says they do). But I want to teach a little human about this world. I want them to teach me even more. I want someone to push my buttons and press me in ways that have me pulling out my hair. I want sleepless nights and permanent dark circles. I want something that makes sense. I want to wake up knowing how it feels to love a person so much, you’d lay down in front of a train to protect them.

One day, I want to be a mom. And I really, really hope that happens.