slow march to insanity

When I was a kid, I used to think no week passed more slowly than the week before Christmas. Seriously: it was like time halted that week, dragging by in a crawl, with the particular intent of torturing small children who sat drooling under the Christmas tree, waiting for the present-opening orgy to come.

Ah, childhood. What an idiot I was.

Not really, of course. But it does demonstrate that I've had some problems with the concept of patience for quite awhile. Christmas week seemed slow, but it was a racetrack in comparison to the 2 week wait.

3dp5dt. Nothing particular to note: some minor cramping, but that's normal. My nurse called yesterday to check on me, which was sweet: she told me to call back if I had any questions, but given that my only real question for her right now is, "can you speed up time?" I'm pretty sure there's not much point in asking.

This coming week we'll commemorate Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the season of Lent. Last year at this time, I was just beginning our first IVF cycle. During that Lent, last year, I found a poem that's been posted on the bulletin board next to my desk ever since:

Breakthrough
This lenting
is a longing, looking,
isolating and locating process,
a passing of the time between
what has to be, what may become,
a late, last solitary lingering
among the soiled and crusted snowbanks
of deep-drifted hurt and disappointment
seeking out those tender-tough new shoots
that pierce the calloused surface
of all losing with the agony
of life becoming green
again.

From what I can tell, the author of this poem, J. Barrie Shepherd, is a Presbyterian pastor. I think he's retired. I'm going to go out on a limb and take a wild guess that he's never personally experienced an in-vitro cycle (though I could be wrong).

But he's clearly a guy who knows about waiting. How hard it is, to be suspended between what has to be, what may become; how lingering among the places of deep-drifted hurt and disappointment can nearly drive you crazy; and yet how, for whatever reason, there is no other way to get to the agony of life becoming green again.

Now if poets could only make time go faster, that would be great.