The Witch and I

Last night I started reading Paulo Coelho's "The Witch of Portobello". I love his books: the words he uses to weave his stories always get stuck in my soul somewhere, making me think and feel deeper than I expected to.

It's not much different with the witch. On page 5 the words zoomed into my heart and I had to read it over and over.

Somehow Mr. Coelho put the tip of his finger on the most sensitive part of my being while he was describing an episode from Athena's life through the eyes of an admirer.

Here is what he wrote:

"But then, how many of us will be saved the pain of seeing the most important things in our lives disappearing from one moment to the next? I don't just mean people, but our ideas and dreams too: we might survive a day, a week, a few years but we're all condemned to lose. Our body remains alive, yet, sooner or later, our soul will receive the mortal blow. The perfect crime - for we don't know who murdered our joy."

The next paragraph explains so perfectly how I see myself during the times we tried to conceive, when I was dreaming of my own child, buying baby clothes, living the dream during those few weeks I was pregnant:

"I'm finally coming to accept that I was only a temporary inhabitant, there as a favor, like someone who finds himself in a beautiful mansion, eating exquisite food, aware that this is only a party, that the mansion belongs to someone else, and that the time will come when the lights will go out, the owners will go to bed, the servants will return to their quarters, the door will close, and he'll be out in the street again, waiting for a taxi or a bus to restore him to the mediocrity of his every day life."

And then the harshest of realities when I woke up:

"...This is the universe I'll have to live with for the rest of my days... I'll wake up sweating and go into the kitchen for a glass of water. I'll understand that in order to combat ghosts you must use weapons that form no part of reality. Then... I'll place and open pair of scissors on my bedside table to snip off the end of the dream. The next day, I'll look at the scissors with a touch of regret, but I must adapt to living in the world again or risk going mad."

Just when you think you're getting a grip on living a strong and painless life having accepted the cruel, cold fact of Infertility, it creeps in from somewhere and you're looking - silently and stunned again - at the empty spaces where your dreams should've been...