It's Just So Strange

This event is sad and disappointing and whole bunch of other things. But the over-riding feeling I'm having is just how weird this is. It's two rapid-fire reversals: we're going to be parents -- oh now we're not. But neither reversal is a full 180. Being parents isn't a drastic change to who we are, and not being parents doesn't quite return us to the way it always was. (So what direction are we going now?) I have a renewed perspective on how tenuous life is. (Though as I catch up on 32, I thought I was sufficiently aware of mortality...?) And there's the question of how to process and deal with this little life, something that's shrouded in a mystery we'll never understand on Earth (of the five Ws, we know at most two). Deb and I both talked about how virtual this process was the whole time. We even compared it to buying our condo, which up until now was our prime example:

We'd go the realtor, and shuffle some papers, sign something and make an electronic payment. Then we'd go to the lawyer, and shuffle some papers, sign something and make another electronic payment. And then we'd go to the bank do it again. And somehow the binder full of papers, the hurried ink marks we made, and debt records in the bank's database add up to the physical place that we live in. Where's the briefcase full of money, and the handshake? That I could comprehend -- this is a bizarre extension of trust that takes it to a level that I'm not entirely comfortable with. I mean, how surprising would it really be if some suit with slicked hair knocked on our door and said "You filled out two papers incorrectly, and as a result I am the new owner of your home" ? (You can perhaps understand why with the imagination I have, I'm glad that I don't trust only in cars and houses.)

I guess, when it comes right down to it, that's what's hitting me. I'm really feeling how virtual life is. I don't know if that's just a product of this era, with its automated money dispensers and gas pumps, or if there's a fundamental spiritual truth I'm tuning in to. Or both. But it seems the only concrete part of this whole process, maybe any process, is its conclusion. And that's just so strange.