Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Schrödinger's Cat

Today is a bit of a limbo day.

Without revealing too much, the family is awaiting some pretty important information regarding a recent diagnosis. We’re all pretty optimistic, because it is within our nature to be pretty obnoxiously optimistic. However, the final cards have not yet been put on the table and there’s still that stupid chance that we’ll fall on the “wrong” part of the curve. (And for those of you on tenterhooks right about now, this is not concerning any kind of progeny or pregnancies or anything… not even barely… so, you know, stop asking.)

It wouldn’t be much of a surprise, after all. I mean, odds are odds and 2% chance of rain still means that it COULD still rain. Just because there’s a certain probability of things going right and us getting the good news doesn’t mean that getting the bad news won’t happen. 100 people, and 15 of them have to get the bad news, someone has to be one of those 15 people.

That which will happen has not yet come to pass. Schrödinger’s cat isn’t out of the box yet. Both futures exist right now. Option 1 is the good news. That’s where everything’s fine and we all go on about our business with the knowledge that everything’s still fine and oh dear how awful for the people who get the bad news. Option 2 is the bad news. That’s something I just can’t think of right now. We’ll deal with that when it comes up I guess. I’ll only allow it to be a simple option in the back of my head. I’ll give it no more sunlight than that.

Does it matter though? Has the option already been scripted and we’re just waiting for time to unfold and show it to us or is it all still in flux? I mean, Sure, it matters if I worry myself into a stomach-lining-less dither about it for the next 12 hours (or however long it takes) because then I’ll be sick AND depressed. But beyond my own fretting, does it matter? Does prayer matter? Does hoping and wanting and wishing for something over which I have no control right now, does it change the future? Some say yes.

Some say that if you pray hard enough, you get the field goal because the deity likes you. They say that if you don’t pray hard enough, you get beat up behind the track by the half-backs because the deity thinks you’re an asshole.

I don’t think it works that way though. I think that you get the field goal because you kicked it hard and the wind was just right. I think you get beat up behind the track by the half-backs because they’re homophobic idiots and you implied they might make a nice couple.

I think that both options, option 1 and option 2 exist concurrently right now. There are two “universes”, into which I’m potentially about to be plunged. Probably there are three, actually, the third including an option which hasn’t even occurred to me. Schrödinger’s cat might come out of the box as a dying dog. Or a purple zebra. Or a stuffed flamingo. Depends on the type of gas in there, I guess. And we don’t know that, do we?

We don’t get to know.
We just get to feel the greasy smear of probability on our skins and squirm uncomfortably in the white-hot light of that which has not yet come to pass.

We get to wait.
And I have never.
Ever.
Been good.
At waiting.

No comments: