I wait. I wait for the birth pangs, I wait for the mourning. But both are slow in coming

It’s been a year since I sat on the floor on Tishah B’Av, knees uncomfortably connecting with the giant baby I was carrying, waiting for salvation.

This is it, I think.

This is what waiting, truly waiting, for the Geulah feels like.

Every twinge, every sudden movement, and I think, here it is. Here we go. It’s starting.

And then I sink back onto the floor, clutching my Eichah, as I realize it was nothing at all.

I break my fast around midday, and then I give up. It’s never going to happen, I tell myself, heaving myself off of the cold Jerusalem floors. You’re going to carry this baby forever.

I think fleetingly of the morning, how positive I was that labor could begin at any moment, and shrug it off. It’s too long. Waiting is too hard.

I read my kinnos from the comfort of a porch chair, sipping cold water and raspberry leaf tea. I look out at my corner of the Holy City, my personal oasis, white stone against azure sky, and think of how Hashem has no time constraints, how to Him, right now, Jerusalem is in flames.

I cry, because I’m uncomfortable and I’m scared and I don’t want Jerusalem to burn.

And I don’t want to bring another child into a world that isn’t getting better with each passing year, but worse.