I was eighteen years old, walking across the campus of my commuter college with my big sister. We were newly on our own, feeling raw and freshly thrust into the strange "real world", trying to figure out who we are and what the heck we were supposed to be doing.
These questions felt potent, important, and we were the tragic heroines of this drama in our heads. Cigarettes and caffeine, poetry and philosophy, a new sense of doubt about our religious beliefs, all of this combined to create a heavy feeling of portent in the air between us. It was fall, an overcast day, as we walked towards the library. She sang to me softly, "well, I would not give you false hope, on this strange and mournful day..." I know it sounds cheesy now, but the perfection of these words in this moment made me feel inexplicably like crying.
I'm thinking about that day now, 17 years later. (How can that be??) So much has happened...I got married, had five (!!!) children, moved a bunch of times. She chose a different path in life, focusing on her work and finally, only recently getting into a long term relationship.
She told me a couple of weeks ago that she and her boyfriend are looking into IVF. I care so deeply and viscerally for her (does that make sense? its like a part of my body, that girl), that hearing that both filled me with hope and joy and had me quaking with fear for her. What if it doesnt work? What if he changes his mind? (He's not the most committed soul.) What if the process exhausts her? What if it works and she miscarries? (I had one miscarriage, I can't imagine how that would be for her.)
When she called, it happened to be a fall day, overcast, and I was wandering around the garden of a mansion where my daughter takes dance classes, holding my youngest daughter (10 months old). I flashed back seventeen years that moment. So strange how a song lyric, and the sensations of fall can conspire like that to hold your heart in its palm.
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