On My Own

I have a dirty little secret to admit.

I might have been addicted to the show Alias for the last few months.

You see, I like to watch old series on Netflix. Ones that people seemed to like, but that I just never got into for one reason or another. I like it, because you can choose a series that is already over and watch it start to finish without any of the annoying summer or winter breaks. I don't handle the suspense of waiting well, so it works for me!

But Alias really drew me in for some reason. I’m not sure why, but I think part of it is that I secretly wish I was as cool as Sydney Bristow. That chick managed to get herself out of all kinds of crazy circumstances. Let’s be real: she was pretty bad ass.

I am a lot of things, but bad ass isn’t so much one of them. The other night (for reasons I can’t explain), I was walking through my living room and I tried to pull off a jump-in-the-air spy kick.

I landed on my butt.

Hard.

Bad ass I am not. And I could clearly never be a spy. Spies have to be able to fight people without falling. Some days I can’t even walk without falling.

So, as silly as it was (and really, any series that has so many people die and mysteriously come back to life is silly), I got sucked in to Alias. This last few weeks I have been watching the final season, and Sydney is pregnant (hopefully I don’t need to give a spoiler alert seeing as the series has been over for a few years now, but if I do: Spoiler Alert!) Vaughn (her hottie spy boyfriend) is presumed dead (she saw him get shot and code with her own two eyes) and she is now moving forward into motherhood, by herself.

Yes, it took until the final season before I finally related (somewhat) to Sydney. She actually stopped being a superhero in my mind and became a real person.

Still cooler than I could ever be, but at least about to walk a path similar to my own.

In one episode in particular, she was talking to her sister (her spy sister, who she didn’t even know she had until like season 3) about how weird it was to be entering this next phase of life on her own. She was discussing how she always pictured motherhood would be, and it was never without a husband by her side.

Granted, she still continued to be bad ass. The woman was fighting bad guy’s right up into her 8th month. I’ll be lucky if I’m still managing to go to the grocery store in my 8th month! Heck, even after she had the baby she had these two crazy cool spy nannies who came over when she had to go on missions. They could change a diaper, make a bottle, and kill you with two fingers.

Let’s just say that Sydney Bristow had one or two up on me.

But she still got me thinking. This isn’t how I ever pictured it either. I certainly never thought I would be pursuing motherhood on my own. I can absolutely recognize that having a partner in this would make things easier; more ideal.

I want that husband. That partner. That father to my children.

That’s life though, and life doesn’t always work out how you pictured it would. Sometimes you have to be a little bad ass. Sometimes you have to find another way to work things out. To get what you want; what you need.

I know I am not in this completely on my own, and that in time that partner will appear. It was just weird to have something in common with Sydney Bristow. To be watching and think “Hey! I totally hear her on that!”

Of course, a few episodes later Vaughn reappeared (not really dead at all, just hiding away with some monks thousands of miles away) and the two of them went on to save the world and then raise their daughter (and later a son) together happily ever after.

So, you know, they kind of burst my bubble there.