The Power of Now

I'm back in the game. I started back on my injections the other night after the u/s this week showed my cysts are gone. So this is cycle # 3. And my HSG I had done last week didn't show any blockage. Let's hope it helped paved the way for traveling embryos.

I've been thinking a lot about plans lately - making plans mostly. I've been a planner my whole life. I need organization. I need order and structure and stability. I need to know exactly where I am going and exactly how to get there. I'm always thinking two steps ahead. I get lost in the future sometimes I think about it so much. I think about how to make it exactly as I want it. I want children so I think about what I'm going to need to do to have children. I want a career change so I think about what I have to do to make a career change. But what's funny is that while I tell myself these are things I can control, things I need to control (yes, I am a major control freak), I know that there's not much in life we have control over. The ability to have children is pretty much totally out of my control and the career change is somewhat in my control but not completely. There are a million things that could derail that plan. And that's the funny thing about plans - they rarely work out like they are supposed to.

Thinking back on my life the most important and significant events were unplanned. I didn't plan on calling my now husband one day after not speaking to him in two years and that conversation leading to the relationship that would last a lifetime. I just did it one day on a whim. I didn't plan on my now husband moving across the country to start a life with me. He told me he'd made that decision one day and 8 weeks later we were moving into an apartment together. I didn't plan on having the job and the career I have now. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I didn't plan on being infertile.

So why do we work so hard on these big plans we make for ourselves if we know we aren't guaranteed the outcome? Why can't we just live in the moment, for the moment? I understand that there are circumstances that warrant some planning. If I am to make the career change and have children despite my infertility there needs to be some sort of plan. Waking up day after day without taking any action definitely won't make either of those things happen. But at what point do we tell ourselves, I've done enough. I'm going to go to school to make my career change, or take these shots every night, but beyond that I'm not making any more plans.

Maybe I feel like if I just keep moving at a runner's pace I'm sure to make these plans happen. And let's just say that they do. Then what? I start planning again? Maybe this time it's for a second child, or now that I've finished school I've got to land that job in my new career and work my way up the ladder. Are you exhausted yet? If you're anything like me you've been planning for so long that you don't remember where you started. And you don't know if you are where you are today because of either good or bad planning or because of coincidence or fate or whatever. But it doesn't matter why we are where we are today or how we got here. That's the past. It's over. And the future doesn't belong to any of us. For all of our planning and ambitions it's only as certain as the next sunrises and sunsets. And who is planning those?

So that just leaves us with right now. Right this minute you are reading this and in the back of your mind you're still thinking about your plans and your future. That's ok. I am too. Most of us don't live in the present nearly as much as we should and that's to our detriment. Right this minute I'm listening to the soft sounds of the crickets outside my window. I'm feeling the warm spring air through the window. I'm smelling fresh, new grass. No plans. No worries. No pain. Not for those 10 seconds that I just took a complete time out to notice those things instead of thinking about my plans and my future.

"Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry — all forms of fear — are caused by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of non forgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence."
-Eckhart Tolle

"Be where you are. Otherwise you will miss your life."
-Buddha