Thoughts from a Thinking Girl

[Note to those whose heart just skipped a beat – it wasn’t my stick.]

I was in a professional office building the other day, waiting for an appointment. The building is home to accountants, attorneys, and more therapists than you imagined would be necessary in such a small concentration of square footage. It’s a mixed-use retail building as well, so when people are done with their finances or their legal cases or their emotional upheaval, they can engage in the highest form of personal growth: retail therapy.

I had over-caffeinated that morning, and used the you-can’t-steal-it-if-it’s-attached-to-an-enormous-dangling-thing key for entry into the drab restroom. My paper towels were mid-arc toward  the white plastic waste bin when my eyes saw it: the flattened EPT box, and the stick. Who, I wondered, had just come out of the bathroom? Could I tell? There weren’t that many paper towels on top. Who took EPT tests at work? Or in an anonymous professional building bathroom? Was the news good or upsetting? Was there another potential life that had been just glimpsed here, in this utilitarian restroom lacking even the simplest of plants or wicker baskets or wall hanging to give the user even the faintest hint of comfort? So much white: the toilet, the metal bin for used feminine products, and the metal seat-cover holder. The only non-white in that room was the red, plastic “Please, No Smoking” sign bolted to white walls. And the briefest hush of pink on the packaging in the trash. And the unknown color of the line. I considered pulling the stick out of the trash to see what it showed; then I remembered it was a pee stick. I tossed my white paper towel in the trash, obscuring further the box and the stick, and walked out.

In the waiting area, I had newfound curiosity. Could I tell who it was? What if it wasn’t someone scheduled for an appointment, but one of the professionals in the building. Was it my accountant? That gal’s therapist? The therapist of the woman sitting with a floppy, messy lap dog? The older-than-you’d-hope-for-stealth-pregnancy-checking woman with the bob and the nice coat? Or the bobbed/nice-coated woman’s attorney?

Another’s life was filled with drama that day; I’d been merely floating in the regularity and commonplace of my day. Minutes before my routine need to pee, someone performed an act that could change her life, and possibly the lives of at least two other beings. Nothing in my life would change just because I’d peed in that room. Not so for the woman before me, who probably held her breath in the realization that her whole world could shift after the pee hit the stick, and that at that moment she had no idea which way it would change –regardless of how desperately she had hoped for (or prayed against) either result.

I haven’t brought new life into being for over a decade, and never really think of it. In fact, I’m jarred to have to fill out the answer to the question, “Are you possibly pregnant?” when I’m at a doctor’s office. For the briefest of moments, in an uncomfortable waiting room chair, holding a clip board and pen, I hover over the question and the time when the engulfing/terrifying/exhilarating not-knowing returns, ever so briefly. I check “No” and move on.

I have moved on – beyond – the life-giving/life-ending responsibility phase of life, with all its burdens and joys. The restroom trash find reminded me of the harrowing time for so many young(er) women, all around me, who are wondering what their future holds: are they about to be mothers, or about to head into a very difficult discussion or moral choice? About to go home in lonely tears, or about to have a night of ecstatic, sparkling grape-juice toasts, hopeful tears and “Oh my God’s” and the hush of a private, secret knowledge that one has just joined the life-giving power pulsing through the universe?

I’ll never know how this woman’s drama turns out. As I’ve continued to think about it, I return to a feeling of sadness, of having stumbled on the desolation of someone who waited, alone, in a drab, white, utilitarian restroom to learn which direction her life would take. I hope she awaits the line on her next pee stick at home, with the love and support of her partner, together experiencing the worry/disappointment/elation of whatever they had hoped for.