There is something about fall that makes it easier to hope. Something about the crisp in the air that carries a sense of anticipation, a feeling that good things are just on the horizon. It makes me nostalgic for a time when this kind of weather would signal the need for school supplies, for Trapper Keepers and new corduroys and a glossy new lunchbox with the character du jour on the front of it. There was a sense of starting over, of wiping the slate clean, and this weather brings all of those memories rushing back. It makes me want to run out and buy number two pencils.
But it's harder now to think about what's ahead, because the stakes are so much higher. Gone are the days when my biggest problem is that I'm not crazy about my new math teacher. That my BFF isn't in the same homeroom. That my boyfriend is trying out for varsity track this year and may not have time to hang out.
On my drive to work, I look at the throngs of newly arrived students -- when you live in a college town it's impossible to avoid them -- and I just think, You don't know how lucky you are. Not that I would go back. I like being 32 and happily married and knowing now what I didn't know then. But would I escape from this limbo -- this time when I'm no longer a carefree 20-something with no real responsibilities but not yet a 30-something with the children I always knew for sure I would have by now -- if I could? Would I give up the burden of infertility and once again feel what it's like to live with unburdened hope ahead? In a heartbeat.
I don't know what to hope for anymore. As I prepare to start an IVF cycle -- something I swore I wouldn't do when we started this journey, before I felt the sting of failure and the irresistible allure of something bigger and better promising to deliver on my dream -- I am not sure if I dare to trust the better odds, the assurances that this is far superior to everything I've done before. In a way, it feels like I'm starting over, like this is where it might really get good. But I've been fooled into hoping before, and my horizon for hope beyond this is getting shorter and shorter.
I don't know what to hope for. So I'm trying to just enjoy the moments of this season that I adore, savoring the scent of dried leaves and apples and the veil of softer sunlight, and every so often, the sense it brings that something good might be just around the corner.
Friday, October 10, 2008
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2 comments:
Fall is my favorite season as well for exactly those reasons. I love the idea of starting over. A new start. I had the same thoughts today, that I don't feel old enough to BE 32. Crazy.
I love fall too, for all the reasons you mentioned. I also know how hard it is to keep hoping, to keep working as hard as we have to-- I guess I hope that someday, when we have our babies, this will all seem so far away that we will wonder if we really lived it or if it was just a story that someone told us.
I am excited about and hopeful for your new cycle. I'm not far behind you, so you can talk me through it all when the time comes.
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