40 weeks, 3 days: Waiting for Godot

As I’ve mentioned before, I was an English literature major in college.  There are those who argue that this is one of the more useless degrees, but I have found that those people usually grow up to be real estate agents or stock analysts and thus I pay no attention to them and their lack of a soul.  I myself am very glad that I was an English major, and not just because I learned how to think critically and communicate clearly.  And footnote properly.  Let’s not forget the importance of a proper footnote.

No, one of the great joys of being an English major is that you absorb so much literature so deeply that it tends to pop back up throughout your life when you need it most. 

My marriage to Alias Father four years ago was a tremendous leap of faith, in that despite knowing each other for six years we had never actually lived closer than a few hours apart and that, for the most part, our courtship was marked by ongoing bad timing, periods of dating other people, and lots of wishy-washiness.  We decided to get married in April, actually got hitched in October, and in the intervening six months I felt like my life was moving faster and faster and spiraling completely out of my control. 

The day I moved all of my things to his town (three weeks before the wedding) was a particularly scary one for me.  I remember sitting in my car on the side of the road, nearly hyperventilating from being both thrilled and panicked, convinced that I was doing the right thing, but equally convinced that this could totally ruin my free-spirited life.  At that moment, I remembered a scene from Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums when the main character is hiking down a mountain.  He begins to pick up momentum and soon finds himself sprinting down a rocky hill, terrified that he is going to crash but unable to stop.  Suddenly he gets that sweet, sudden endorphin rush that can hit in the presence of sun, execise, and mountains and realizes that he is completely wrong.  He isn’t going to fall, simply because “It’s impossible to fall off a mountain, you fool!”  Of course it is!  You won’t fall, you can just move faster and faster, leaping from rock to rock, trusting that gravity and the universe will keep you safe until you get home. 

That line became my mantra, and as I drove the few hours to my new life I repeated it over and over and, in fact, repeated it again in my head as Alias Father and I walked together to get married in front of a large crowd of people who loved us but thought that we were generally off our rockers.

I had another one of those English major moments this morning as I lay in bed, contemplating yet another day of being pregnant.  I was laying on my left side, belly braced against a pillow.  My left arm was dead asleep, my shoulder was aching like crazy, and I had pillow marks in my face so deep that they hurt.  I was tremendously uncomfortable and desperately wanted to flip over, but the herculean effort of shifting this gigantic belly over to the other side, rebuilding my pillow nest, and resettling was completely beyond me.  I knew I wasn’t going to sleep more where I was, but I just couldn’t face moving.  So I lay there, completely defeated, feeling like I could not handle another minute, let alone another possible week or more, as a pregnant lady.

So I thought of Samuel Beckett.

I mean, who wouldn’t?

Well, real estate agents and stock analysts probably wouldn’t.  But I did.  Beckett’s constant theme was that our lives are essentially spent just waiting.  Waiting to be happy, waiting to die, waiting for enlightment that never really comes.  Just…waiting.  All of the things we do every day–the jobs, the housecleaning, the jokes, the parties, the sex–just fill the time while we wait.

And boy, was I doing some heavy duty waiting this morning.

So my favorite Beckett line came back to me.  This isn’t actually from “Waiting for Godot” but is actually from, I think, the novel Murphy. In it, the narrator feels that this whole life thing has just become completely overwhelming.  He can no longer continue with this pointlessness, this endless series of repetative tasks that serve no purpose other than to get us through the day.  So in despair he mutters, “I can’t go on.” And then, “I’ll go on.”

And this morning that made perfect sense to me.

I can’t go on.  I’ll go on.

It’s true that I can’t stand being pregnant anymore.  But it’s equally true that I will stand being pregnant, because what are my other options?  So I flipped myself over with plenty of Beckett-appropriate groaning and muttering and got on with the waiting on my right side.

I have today off because of Veteran’s Day.  I’m going to clean the kitchen.  I’m going to bake banana bread.  I’m going to fold all the laundry.  I’m going to watch some bad TV and read a bit, though I don’t have much attention span right now.  I’m going to take the dogs for a walk.  I’m going to do all those pointless things that take up the day, because, really, what are my options?

I can’t go on.  I’ll go on.