SF and I spent the weekend at my 10-year college reunion. The high points included spending time with close friends we don't see nearly often enough, trying a new dish at my favorite restaurant there, accepting our favorite professor's offer of his office phone for a call to our absent friend in England, and a serendipitous ride in a golf cart.
More difficult moments included the main thing people ask at reunions -- "So, what have you been up to?"
I've talked a lot in this blog, I think, about the difficulty of knowing how much to say and to whom. Ann's current post also touches on the question. As one of my close friends pointed out this weekend, infertility is "like a job" in the amount of time and attention it can consume. So when people who don't need the play-by-play ask how things have been, especially in a somewhat competitive situation like a reunion, I feel like there's a gaping hole in what I'm telling them -- as though their only logical reaction would be "Wait -- that's *all* you do in a week?"
Truth is, they're probably not listening that closely. Maybe I should take Ann's science metaphor in a different direction: those dealing with infertility are like Mad Scientists, working on our secret chemistry projects, projects that we're keeping under wraps for now, waiting for the day when we will unveil them and rule the world! Bwahahahaha!
I don't believe we should always keep infertility secret, that it isn't something we talk about in our culture, but there are times when it's more comfortable to keep your mouth shut, if you can get past worrying what other people think about you. For those times, I'll think of myself as the Mad Scientist, plotting world domination, and I will laugh quietly into my collar.
Bwahahahaha.
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1 comment:
That is a hilarious post! I don't know about you, but when I reveal my secret project to the world, I'm going to make damn sure everyone knows how hard it was to achieve.
I remember being at a girls' night out event (friends of friends--that sort of thing), and one of the women, in introducing herself as we went around the table, said that after struggling with IF, she and her husband were pursuing adoption. That was her "about me" segment. I was taken aback, but not in a bad way. I was grateful that she had put it out there in the open, because I knew I would eventually have troubles. As the months go by, I'm consciously looking for opportunities to casually mention my IF, just to let people know that I don't lead a completely boring life with "nothing much new--working, and that's about all."
(By the way, I also appreciate your comic timing in this post. Very well-written! I'm so glad that I discovered the blogosphere, because it gives me a chance to canoodle with others who appreciate the English language.
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