Cycles and Circles

The world is full of circles, and cycles.

The moon has a cycle, the earth has a wobble, the galaxy has a rotation. It seems when referring to tiny and to giant, everything is a circle, or a cycle.

Bodies are the same way, especially women's bodies. The oceans within them travel with the moon and the tides, season after season. They flow and change as long as they are capable of giving life.

Life seems to have its cycles as well, as least for me. There are times when there is nothing of importance happening, and others when every little thing I see and touch is broken.

But it is a cycle, this life, and broken things can be made whole. It is a simple thing for the universe to turn one thing into another, whether we like it or not. Our present form is incidental, particles going from one place to another who stopped long enough to make us solid. It almost seems strange how much time we waste in our lives, since we know that is the case.

Buddhism describes the universe as a cycle, being created and destroyed over and over again but never being gone. They think of life as the same, that a soul is reborn again and again, the universe recycling the energy as the machine that it is. Modern physics seems to agree, at least with the recycling part. Nothing can created or destroyed. They made it a law.

Sometimes, a cycle can end and begin in the same moment. The image of a serpent swallowing its tail comes to mind. It can't really swallow its own tail, but at that moment when it makes the attempt, it's hard to know where is the beginning and where is the end.

There is so much happening. I know I am letting go. I smile at babies and talk to them in funny voices. I look out for my pregnant friend at work, and tell her to take a break and go eat something, because the baby needs food. Maybe because it's now okay for me to try again, I feel like I'm back on even footing. I don't have to be in mourning forever. No one made me shave my eyebrows or singe my hair or wear black for a decade. I am back to having a choice, a frighteningly uncertain choice. If I were any other animal, it wouldn't be the thought of a choice. I would just do what came naturally and what happened would be what happened. Perhaps it's not a blissful ignorance, but a mourning cut short by the demands of survival.

Isn't this the same, though? But it doesn't feel cut short or pushed aside too soon. Maybe it's some sort of hormonal amnesia, the kind that some women talk about when they remember childbirth. Their brain is flooded with hormones that convince them procreation is the highest calling, that their pain and suffering are well worth the result. I don't dispute that the motivation may in fact be true, but I find it interesting that a women's body works this way. When I witnessed a birth, for example, I was incredibly moved by the experience, even though it was no child or relation of mine. I was able to understand at that moment why it was worth it, see how suddenly one person became two, watch as that unique life took her very first breath. For the first time, I knew there was no shame in being female and no reason for any little girl growing up to hate her body. It was a sacred and beautiful thing.

And I knew that I wanted to do that, too. I wasn't sure if I'd be any good at the mothering part, and I was a little concerned that the permanent change in my brain would make me into a person I wouldn't want to be. There would be a lot of issues I'd have to sort out, conflicts I had with my own mother, ways I wouldn't want to be like her. I'd be capable of doing better, right? I wasn't sure.

So for the longest time, I thought it would be a bad decision to have a child. Then, I met a person that I somehow decided would be just the right father. And now that we've been through one cycle of failure, we're both concerned with what the future outcome will be. And it's agreed that is really up to me to decide when I feel right about giving things another try. I still have anxiety when I think about the future. What if I really can't have kids? How long will it take for this to work? Will I be happy when it does, or even more worried?

Having too many choices makes me want to wait to let my anxiety pass. But at some level, it isn't entirely my choice. Something in my brain that has no logical basis wants to fulfill this drive and it won't let a miscarriage stand in its way.

So as the cycle passes through death and loss and grief, it re-emerges into the realm of possibilities, and an infinite number of futures lay themselves out like roads before me. Which way will I be led? Which outcome will I receive? There is no answer.

Not yet.