I have been somewhat in absentia here at Planet Waves, having had my surrogate come and speak on my behalf while I have had a very busy past few weeks. I’ve been working with my theater company on developing our new show — a collaboration with our local Planned Parenthood organization. I’ve literally not only had my uterus speak for me, I’ve been inundated with facts, figures and anecdotes on the full spectrum of female reproductive health issues.
So I found it synchronistic while perusing Facebook today to find a New York Times article on parents providing financial assistance to their daughters so that they could afford the expensive process to freeze their eggs while the donor is still young for future fertilization. While reading, it took me a minute to figure out this wasn’t science fiction, but fact. What time is it?
I keep asking the question because we seem to be at a very odd, multi-dimensional relationship with time: we’re fighting to make it slow down, stand still, yet live our lives and take in bytes of information and experiences at a rate a hundred times faster than our parents, and maybe a thousand times faster than our grandparents. And what are we are taking in while trying to slow or supersede the inevitable decay of time?
The reason I ask is because the women interviewed in the story seem relieved by the removal of the biological alarm clock that so pressured them to find a suitable mate to father children. Their parents were equally, if not more so thrilled that they aided their prospects for healthier grandchildren. Here is an excerpt from the article: