Starting Monday

I remember those lazy summer days between my Sophomore and Junior years of High School. My best friend and I would lie on our stomachs on the sun-heated trampoline with our chins propped up on our hands. We talked about where we would apply to college, the degrees we would pursue and the boys we would meet. It seemed like a far-off place, like Oz. But we were so certain we would attend college that we were blasé about it: “Oh, OZ. Whatever; that’s in, like, two years.”  

I make about a thousand New Year’s Resolutions each year. Oftentimes I declare yearly mantras: Year of Renewal. Year of Productivity. I follow through with a small percentage of these efforts, but only because of my laziness or mismanaged time. I could fulfill each resolution if I tried. I was raised to work and try hard and that, if I did, there would be great reward. And so I work; I plan; I organize; I learn; I pursue. Ever upward. 

This morning as I write, it is Monday. I am coming off my usual indulgent weekend of brunches and Netflix. My Monday Morning motivation courses through my body and I am reborn. In the middle of February, I can start anew. My friends giggle at my impassioned “starting Monday” lead-ins. Starting Monday I am going to exercise more. Eat less. Drink more water. Avoid caffeine. Starting Monday, I will get back on the horse.

I am not accustomed to the utterance “It might  happen.” In this nebulous limbo of trying to conceive, I am unable to apply my “Starting Monday” philosophy of achieving precisely what I put my mind to. It makes me feel like I am failing at something. For the first time ever, there is no immediate reward to working and trying hard. There is no guarantee that I will automatically graduate into The Next Phase of Life. 

I am not good at failing. That does not mean that I am Rico Suave at everything I have attempted. I sat in the back row of my piano recitals nervously awaiting my turn, perfectly packaged in dresses and bows but trembling like those annoying sweater-wearing lap dogs that shiver 24-7. I thumbed out my Rachmaninoff on my lap and heaved inward and outward sighs of distress. I slid off my chair into a pool of fear and self-loathing. And I was in the company of 7 year olds! Whose recital pieces were Old MacDonald and Chopsticks! In a Junior High School gymnasium! Where the Moms elbowed the Dads in the ribs when their heads bobbed in boredom! And yet the possibility of failure taunted me. Tremulously I would perform, rigid in the first few measures, but fluid thereafter. Though imperfect, I pounded out those notes and finished the song. The applause was uproarious. 

It has struck me that I cannot rehearse for this fertility symphony. There is nothing I can do in my own power to play these notes just right. (“Yes there is!” you say. And I will get to that in another entry.) I am looking to the Great Conductor, my brow furrowed in wistfulness, awaiting the music to the song of my life. I walk one foot in front of the other down the yellow brick road with the only thing spurring me on being the Light that shines just over the hill.