Lucky 13

This is the entry I have fantasized about posting , and now that I am putting pen to paper, I am realizing that the words are strangely absent. I will just spit it out: Eric and I are expecting. Many of you have deduced this detail due to my silence over the last several weeks. I have walked a line between wanting to tell everyone and wanting to tell no one. We decided to wait out our first trimester before proceeding with gusto. Honestly, it wasn’t until earlier this week that we both finally took a deep breath. So here we are. 13 weeks.

 In January I went to my dear friend’s wedding in Seattle. I was able to pop into my favorite boutique (twice!) while I was there. I found a stack of vintage playing cards and selected the number 13. 2013 was newly upon us and my girlfriends, sister-in-law and I had already dubbed this year “Lucky ‘13.” I also found a basket of typed out quotes and searched for one I could declare my mantra for the year. Here is what I found:

Do everything with a mind that lets go.

If you let go a little, you will have a little peace.

If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.

If you let go completely, you will know complete peace and freedom.

Your struggles with the world will have come to an end.

--Achaan Chah

Now, this quote is a little Loosy Goosy, but it conveyed the posture that was essential to my survival this year: Surrender. I framed these two tokens, hung them on my wall and surrendered my hope for a “Lucky ‘13.”

The ironic thing is, I don’t believe in luck. Eric is a poker player and was an athlete growing up. (You still are, Honey.) If you ever watch a baseball game, I mean really WATCH it, you’ll see how luck or superstition factors into everything. A batter taps the outer edge of home plate twice before he un-velcros and re-velcros his batting glove, spits seeds over his left shoulder, tips the bill of his hat  and then assumes his batting stance. Before EVERY PITCH. The same goes with gambling. Gamblers blow on their dice before they toss them or tap on the cards they were dealt before they are overturned. These actions imply that there is something we can DO to determine our fate. And of course this is partially true. You can apply for a job. Or join a Singles’ Group. You can pee on ovulation sticks, take Mucinex to thin your cervical mucus and eat conception-enhancing pineapple cores (all things I did!). But without faith, I feel like it is all for naught.

I know I am walking on thin ice, here. For all my dear friends who are still TTC (Trying to conceive), I realize that my spouting out that you should “surrender” not only seems cliche, but it probably sounds judgemental. Because surrendering a dream that you dream every waking and sleeping moment in damn near impossible. Of course Eric and I were overjoyed when we got the positive pregnancy test. But I will say that I felt like I was betraying my TTC community. I woke up one day and it was me on the other side of the fence. I don’t know why my time is now.

I asked my sweet pregnant girlfriend (who is much further along than me) how pregnancy has most changed her. She answered that it’s in her love and empathy for others. She has found herself praying earnestly for friends in need and grieving the woes of the world. I am starting to feel the same. Empathy is creeping back into my life (it slithered out after years of being a flight attendant...sad, but true) and I break for the brokenhearted. 

Tonight I pray for those in want of something. I pray for a perfect blend of grasping tightly and letting go, of doing and not doing, for that nuanced relationship of luck vs. providence, and for a gentle reminder that our stories have already been written.