Context is Key

Dear Reality,

GO AWAY!

Sincerely,
Me


You know you must be a headcase when you find yourself angry that fictional characters are pregnant. I have been reduced to a woman who gives my television the evil eye.

I was watching Eli Stone and half the episode was about one of the characters being pregnant. Of course we needed to see her shopping for maternity clothes and complaining about how fat she is! And yes, we really needed to see her having a sonogram. Don't forget a close up of the baby's heart beating. Yep, there come the tears again. So I'm safe reading a book right? Nope. Evidently characters in books can get pregnant too. Great. The places I come to escape have now become the places that bring me right back to reality.

Sometimes it isn't fictional though and it is that much harder. We got news that a friend of ours has a daughter who is pregnant - again. This would be the second surprise pregnancy for a young mother who unfortunately does not have the means to support one child, let alone two. I wish I could say that my thought immediately went to feeling sorry for her and her children, but that is not true. My first thought was so selfish. Then I get the added dose of guilt. What a wonderfully complicated array of emotions I deal with on a daily basis.


There is a song that has been special to me since last Thanksgiving. It is Thankful by Josh Groban. At first it was a song that made me think of my aunt reading the lyrics to the family before our prayer. This year I began to focus on just a section of the lyrics, ignoring the rest.

So for tonight we pray for
What we know can be.
And on this day we hope for
What we still can't see.

All I could think about was "what we know can be" and "what we still can't see". In my mind this about was our child. A child that we had with us for a short time. Possibly even the child that we will get to keep here with us... the child in our future. Yes, that is a bit distorted from what the lyrics were intended to be about, but that is what they meant to me. I couldn't hear this song without getting tears in my eyes. But I think I need to focus on the whole song, not just taking lyrics out of context.

Some days we forget
To look around us
Some days we can't see
The joy that surrounds us
So caught up inside ourselves
We take when we should give.

So for tonight we pray for
What we know can be.
And on this day we hope for
What we still can't see.
It's up to us to be the change
And even though we all can still do more
There's so much to be thankful for.

Look beyond ourselves
There's so much sorrow
It's way too late to say
I'll cry tomorrow
Each of us must find our truth
It's so long overdue

So for tonight we pray for
What we know can be
And every day we hope for
What we still can't see
It's up to us to be the change
And even though we all can still do more
There's so much to be thankful for.

Even with our differences
There is a place we're all connected
Each of us can find each other's light

So for tonight we pray for
What we know can be
And on this day we hope for
What we still can't see
It's up to us to be the change
And even though this world needs so much more

There's so much to be thankful for

I know the message in this song is one that I could benefit from. The truth is that my scale is heavy on the "blessings" side and light on the "wants" side.