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| Image credit: Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons |
"I bet anything she's pregnant," said Mark as we left a get together with friends in the years long before recovery. Having been through a pregnancy recently ourselves at that point, we knew what to look for: the change in eating habits, the hand unconsciously and lovingly resting over a still flat stomach...
"Totally," I agreed, "But they must not be telling people the news yet."
"You remember that time they said that they didn't think it was possible to tell when someone was at the beginning of a pregnancy?"
"And we did think it was! Oh, I do! I really want to tell them 'I told you so,' but we ought to let them share the news in their own time. But if we do wait, they'll never believe we knew."
"We ought to write it down! Then we can prove that we knew."
"I know what we should do! We'll write it down and seal it in an envelope and mail it to ourselves. That way it will have the postmark with the date on it. I've heard people do that as a cheap and easy way to copyright their writing."
Mark agreed that this was the most fantastic and foolproof idea he'd ever heard. So, we being the not-so-mature or spiritually enlightened, but at least very clever, individuals we were, did just that. And after our friends finally shared their good news with us, we were able to produce the envelope with a flourish and seal our reputations, both as greatly insightful predictors of pregnancy and as gigantic dorks. Whatever. The important thing was: we were right!
And we made them laugh, which was a relief, because it doesn't always happen that way. Needing to be right can be seriously annoying. It's a big glaring character defect of mine, and like most of my character defects, it's born of fear: the fear that I don't know what's real, that I can't trust myself or my own perceptions. External validation is the rock on which I build my church to the fickle God of other people's opinions.
Over the years, in so many of my relationships, I haven't been able to hold on to my truth. I'd state what I saw and be told I didn't see it, state what I felt to be told I didn't feel it, and I'd begin to doubt my own eyes and my own heart. If you say the sky is blue and everyone else around you says it's red, how long before you get your eyes checked? How long before you begin to wonder if you actually know what blue looks like? How long before you start to call it red too? And when someone whispers to you, "No, it is blue, and I have proof..." That's when the "I was right and I have proof" victory dance begins. The one that seems inexplicable to the pleasantly surprised and bemused pregnant woman you're confronting with an irrefutable postmarked envelope.














