In Retrospect

It's annoying how sometimes you can see things in retrospect, and you look back and wonder if maybe you should have seen that train wreck coming, but you didn't.

I had never seen W.est S.ide S.tory until tonight. It didn't take me long to pick up on the R.omeo and J.uliet parallel. Once I did though, I spent the entire movie waiting for the train wreck to happen. It was impending; I felt anxious. I knew, without a doubt, what was going to happen. there would be no happy ending; and there wasn't.

I will say I actually thought the ending was more sad in the movie than in its parallel. I wonder how messed up that is. I just couldn't help but feel sorry for Maria. She lost so much, and now she had to live with all that loss. I think maybe my perspective says something about me. Right now, at this moment, my biggest fear is not remaining childless forever. It is actually losing A- and being alone forever. Of having to live with that pain, having to go through each day without him, without children, without anyone but me. Second to that is the fear of never having children in our lives, because it would always feel incomplete. While it would feel incomplete, the pain of losing him and being totally alone, forever being more than just incomplete... being mostly dead inside... I don't want to think about it.

Before those thoughts though, there was another thought... the fear, the anxiousness, the thought of an impending train wreck. I know that I should have seen infertility coming. I should have, but I didn't. I mean, there were signs. Looking back, I want to scream at those two young lovers, A- and I. I think back, and remember those early feelings and thoughts, and I am griping my seat. I feel the tension building, and I am still watching in horror. I don't know if there will be a happy ending, or a mostly happy ending. So, I clutch my seat, on edge, watching in horror.

I want to say I would shout some warning at them, but even knowing what was going to happen would not change our course in history. We would have still proceeded the same. The outcome would still be this. I would still be watching in horror.

In retrospect, nothing would change; except, I would have seen the train wreck coming. I would have been watching in horror from day one... instead of looking back from day 730 something. I suppose it's better this way. At least the first six months were happy and carefree; naive, but so happy. I sometimes wish I could go back to then, those first six months before the first derailment.

I stand in awe that people feel that way all the time, and they actually reach their destination. How many of us have naively jumped on that same train, our hearts full of laughter, only to realize miles from home that we are headed for a train wreck... I didn't know. I should have, but I am glad I didn't. At least there was some point in this journey where I felt joy, where my heart was light. We have to take what we can get I suppose.

It's becomes agonizing, so hard, to find joy the longer this journey takes. Each dip, curve, mountain we climb... the more miles we put between us and our beginnings, the harder it is to enjoy the simple things in life. I sometimes feel like I am on a train trapped in an endless tunnel. All I can see is what's in my mind; and outside that is simply darkness. Maybe I got on the wrong train, maybe I need to find a different one, one that travels through someplace sunny. But I can't. I have to stay on this train. It's the only one that makes sense in my heart. I know where it's going, and come hell or high water I will get there.