The Power of Pregnant Friends

This week I had dinner with a friend who is the president of an international communications agency based out of London with offices in South America and California. He is a larger-than-life, magnetic person and although we are the same age, he has accomplished so much more than I have in my communications career. From working with NBA legends to the Vatican to helping broker a peace agreement between a government and a rebel faction in South America, he has helped to broaden my understanding of what our profession is and what we can be called upon to do.

I met him three years ago when he, determined to do some work for NASA, used his considerable charm and persistence to schedule meeting after meeting with me until I stumbled across a project that we could collaborate on. Together we rebranded the NASA organization I worked for and based on that success we were able to expand his work with the agency which had brought him back to the states this week. I met with him and his film crew for dinner at the end of a grueling day of interviewing NASA test directors, engineers and even the Launch Director, NASA’s first female in the role, in the Launch Control Center. His inclusion in the remodeling of the iconic facility meant that his work would be seen by astronauts, politicians, on launch broadcasts and by VIP guests which may include the President and other world leaders on Artemis launch days.  

I’d had warm, happy dinners with Carlos and his friends many times over the years and this one was no different. We drank Perrier, ordered no less than five appetizers and dined on pecan-crusted rainbow trout as, with the brilliance of a supernova, his charismatic personality lit up the evening. I was peppered with questions from him and his crew that challenged me – a non-engineer – to clearly communicate my knowledge and understanding of the upcoming Artemis mission and architecture. The conversation organically weaved into the U.S. political landscape and eventually updates on our children and families. Finally, as the night was drawing to an end, he casually dropped a bombshell.

“When do you plan to come to London?”

Luke, the physician who wrote the Gospel of the same name, tells us of a moment when Mary, the mother of Jesus, greeted her cousin Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. Both women were pregnant at the time with children who would later be two of the greatest leaders of the faith, one, of course, greater than the other. Luke tells us that at Mary’s greeting,

“…the babe leapt in {Elizabeth’s} womb.”

Did you know that when you are pregnant with dreams and purpose, associating people who are similarly with child can cause the babe in your womb to leap? If you’ve ever given birth, you’ll remember that pregnancy is uncomfortable, it’s inconvenient, and it makes people around you a little nervous, often vacillating between being awkwardly over-accommodating or regarding you as a time bomb that might explode at any moment. It can be a bit comical.

A purpose pregnancy is a little different. First, there is no outward indication of the condition and thus no reason for people around you to understand why you are uncomfortable and perhaps a bit irritable. Secondly, the gestational period of a purpose pregnancy is counted in years, not months. If you are impatient (like I am!) eventually, you can begin to believe this thing inside you will never come to be. Discouraged, you learn to ignore the cravings, tamp down the stabbing pain of envy and self-doubt when you see others’ dreams flourishing, and just try not to be bitter as you get on with it – as bland and unfulfilling as “it” may be. Yasss, girl, I do know from experience.  

But that night, that one question from that man, stirred my dreams, illuminated my vision, and for the first time in a long time, the babe inside me leapt as I was reminded of a promise I’d made to myself.

In 2015, while I was studying for my master’s in communications, I visited London and Paris for one short, beautiful week. It was the most incredible time of my life. I visited Westminster Abbey and felt the hushed reverence of history overwhelm me; rode “the tube” and a London double-decker bus; visited the London Bridge and Camden Market; ate fish and chips and Yorkshire pudding in a real English pub; I took the train under the English Channel to Paris; had a champagne brunch in the Eiffel Tower, and visited the Louvre, home of Davinci’s original Mona Lisa.

On that trip, I experienced the most poignant moment of my life – sailing down the Seine River watching the Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower float by while Ella Fitzgerald’s voice crooned Summertime in the warm afternoon air. I felt like I had survived everything, every tear, every disappointment, every period of brokenness and discouragement – everything to get to that moment.

It was my snapshot of “perfection” and a moment that made me feel as if impossibility was the only thing that could possibly be impossible. There were no limits. This girl from the deep south, wrapped in chocolate brown skin could go anywhere, could do anything, could make her mark. The world had shrunken itself and I could put my arms around it. It was then that I promised myself that I was going to come back, stay longer and explore more of this atmosphere that had me breathing a rare kind of vibrancy and craving more.

That dinner was five years later, and I don’t know how it happened, but gradually, insidiously the world had expanded and swallowed me whole. My vision, my hopes, my dreams could now easily fit in the kinesphere around me. Just getting the bills paid on time or reaching some small promotion at work or checking some other tiny little insignificant box was what I allowed to subsume me. I was a hamster on a wheel running my heart out, not getting anywhere, and wondering why I felt depressed, tired and uninspired.

When did I forget that there is a big, wide world out there waiting for me to put my mark on it – waiting to put its stamp on the passport of my psyche; my humanity; my life experience?

I tried to answer his question, but I had no answer; no plausible response. I wanted to laugh it off and say “someday” but my own words written here in this blog were squirming in the back of my consciousness “If not now, when?” I went to sleep that night reliving of my moment of perfection, the friends I’d made, the feeling of anything being possible…and still trying to come up with the right answer. I’m 50 years old. When was I going to keep my promise to myself? My babe was leaping – my dreams were spinning – a million new colors I’d forgotten existed were exploding inside me.

I was alive again thanks to a dinner with a “pregnant” friend.

Sis, I’m challenging you to not do what I did. Don’t let your small world swallow you; don’t let your vision shrink! Find those people who are similarly impregnated with purpose, vision, and dreams. That’s your tribe! Make a promise to spend time with them at a minimum of once a month to keep you stretching, growing, and going.

No matter who you are, where you’re from, or what skin you are wrapped in, you can put your arms around this great, big world and make your mark on it.

Girl, if not now, when? #INNW

-Karen xo