Perspective

Friday night, after a delicious night of tantalizing sushi, we settled down by the fire to watch Vicky Cristina Barcelona.  To summarize, the film is about two young American girls who vacation in Spain for a summer and the antics that ensue.  I don't want to give too much away, so I will not discuss the plot.  But, I will say that as the viewer, you experience each character's love, passions and deep seeded emotions, rage and discontentment.  It is easy to find a character with whom to sympathize and the story and its meaning stick with you long after the credits run.  In the end, what stuck with me was the commentary on the contented mind, body, and soul.

Having traveled a great deal when I was younger, I read my own experiences into my understanding of this film.  I know what it is like to travel to far off places and become absolutely enamored with their beauty, their simplicity, their power.  I cannot count the times that I have sat at a museum or a side street cafe relaxing, watching the world pass me by, wishing that this was my life.  I have entered Buddhists temples barefoot, lit incense, and settled in for a meditation session, trying to mentally transport myself to this life.  I have hiked mountains in the dawn to see the sunrise at the precipice, skinny dipped in hidden waterfalls, and lounged on beaches that seem like they are at the edge of the earth.  And every time, I thought, I wish this was my life.  I have melded with the indigenous people eating street food and respectfully celebrated their holidays.  I have even become a real part of some families and now have "sisters" and "brothers" across the world.  As I write this, I miss each and every experience I have had abroad.  I want to go back, feel carefree, experience beauty.  I want that to be my life.  

But, just as I have experienced when returning to everyday life after a long sojourn or even short vacation, the key to contentment is perspective.  These are all wonderful experiences and I count myself very lucky to have had each and every one.  Though I sit here, still wishing myself back to far off places, I always remind myself that that, those dreamy experiences and incredible bonds I have formed, that is my life.  I have been on countless trips with others who constantly muse, in a snarky tone, "Look at that house.  Don't you wish that was yours?  It would be great to be them!"  I want to shake them and scream, because what they are missing is that they are here!  For a month in a beach house!  Don't they realize how fortunate that makes them?  I wish that they would open their eyes and realize that this is their life!  Their discontentment in the midst of their fortune is unbearable.  

To me, the message in the movie was similar--so many souls are tragically discontented, unsatisfied because they live their life without perspective.  When one travels, almost always one wants to immediately transport themselves to that life, that world, wishing desperately it was theirs.  It seems so much simpler, so much more carefree.  But so often, what people do not have at these points is perspective.  They forget that this is indeed, vacation.  It is their life, but it is not everyday life.  Who wouldn't feel carefree and enamored on vacation?

It may be a stretch to connect this to a fertility journey, but I find that that the idea of maintaining perspective through difficult times is imperative to one's survival.  The situations I find myself in that challenge my perspective on my fertility are well documented here already.  Indeed, while I sit now, trying to list them, it seems as if everything challenges my perspective these days--from doctor's appointments to simple conversations to . . . water!  I suppose though, that the situations that challenge it the most are those where I experience the happiness of a complete family--watching mother and baby, hearing the joy in your friend's voice when she shows you her sonogram, seeing a son smile at their daddy.  For me, tears well up and I get that choking sensation in my throat because I wish that was my life.  

But, to put it in perspective, I need to remember, I must remind myself that this will be my life.  It is not my life now, but it will be.  Someday, somehow, we will be there, with a baby, our little bean.  Some of the people I see in this stage of their life have gone through a great deal of heartache to get where they are today.  For others, it was easy.  But I do not sit, barraging them in my head with snarky comments.  At least, I don't usually.  I cannot.  Because, if I put everything in perspective, I am happy for them and their joy.  Because the new life they are fostering enriches my own life immensely.  And because, ultimately, I know that someday that will be my life.  It will.