Collective Waiting

There's a weird feeling in the air and it feels pretty terrible. I'm feeling it from almost everyone around me, and I know a variety of people. All sides. I do not live in an echo chamber.

I know what it's like to wait. We all do. And if you've ever tried to get pregnant or adopt, you know how awful it can be to wait. Especially the kind of waiting where you hope for the best but your gut is filled with dread and despair. 

When you're on your own in feeling this way, it is very lonely and isolating. However, experiencing such strong feelings isn't any better on a collective level. We learned that during the pandemic.

We wait to see what will happen.

Some people are preparing. In their own ways for their own reasons. There are so many different lines of thought out there. Yet, some people are living regularly like nothing is on the horizon. 

It's weird times.

I didn't ask for any of this. The unsettling times. The childlessness. None of us did.

I'm no longer in the waiting room for anything regarding childbearing. I'm not trying to get pregnant. I'm not just realizing that I can't get pregnant. I'm not even in the process of creating a life completely different from the one I had planned for 35 years. I'm done with all that. All of that waiting is over.

But the collective waiting? That's ongoing. We're in the middle of it. Or the beginning. Or the end. Who knows. 

Which is a good reminder: who knows. Remember that nobody knows. We can imagine the worst. We can imagine the best. We can prepare in our own ways in an effort to ease our minds. 

But really, we just wait. 

The world is always changing. It always has and it always will. We do not know what will happen and it's okay that we don't know. For those of us that have experienced the total destruction of the illusion of certainty, we know that we never actually know. 

And that oddly gives me comfort.