A New Day, a Stoplight, and a Loss of Context

Things always look better in the morning. The sun is shining. It's starting to warm up a bit. It's, well, not yesterday.

I've discovered something. I do much better when I forget all context pertaining to our TTC journey. If I think to myself, "We are trying to get pregnant this month," I can feel that excitement that I felt in the beginning, that hope. Even now, at the beginning of my cycle, when usually I'm all gloom and doom. It's when I think "We've been trying to get pregnant for six months" that things go down hill for me. So, if I forget the context, refuse to think about the back story, it's much better! I also can't really think about the future, either. I don't daydream much about babies anymore. I don't even think much about my doctor's visit next week. When I think about the future, I feel this kind of generalized anxiety about what it will--or worse, what it won't--bring. So the key is, thinking about life in one-day increments. Focusing on today. That doesn't work out so well when you have a bad day, as seen yesterday. But the nice thing is, when you wake up in the morning, it's a new day. It's a chance to reset and face things fresh. Like Drew Barrymore's character in 50 First Dates. No context, no history, no baggage.

As I drove to work this morning, I pulled up in line at the light getting out of my neighborhood, and almost immediately the cars in front of me started going. What luck! I usually get stuck at that light, and it's a long one. Then I realized that that traffic light, and the power it wields over your morning commute, is a great metaphor (and 'cause I'm an English major, I'm all about finding the great metaphors in life). Some women hit the TTC green light without even having to slow down. They head down the road and just keep going with nary a pause. Some women have to wait for a little bit to get the green light. Some women hit the light just as it's turning red and have to wait a long time. But, and here's what I liked, do I get MAD at the traffic light when I get there and it's red and I have to wait? I don't. What would be the point in that? It's not a sentient being. It doesn't make value judgements about who waits at the red light and who goes straight through. It just is. You might as well enjoy the music while you're waiting.

My metaphor breaks down a bit when, say, you think about getting stuck at the red light when you're in a hurry. Then you do get mad. And you probably yell at the light. It also breaks down a bit if you believe that the light IS sentient, that it does make value judgements, that it does consciously decide when you get to go. And it breaks down if you focus on the fact that some cars will never make it through the light without outside help, without a tow-truck or something.

But for me, right now, this morning, the stoplight helped me remember that sometimes people get to go and sometimes people get stopped and that's just the way life is. C'est la vie.