Waiting

Tomorrow will be 39 weeks.

I'm still in denial. Every once in a little while I will forget myself. And then all of a sudden I'll look down and be reminded. A baby. A baby is coming. Any day. Any hour. Any minute it could start. And there is nothing to do now but wait. Wait and see...

And go to Target to buy things like a humidifier, CO detector, infant gas drops, and batteries for the swing. Plus necessities like chocolate Gelato and frozen fish sticks. Because it's not like I don't already spend enough money supporting the Target Corporation. It's a love/hate thing.

So I wonder...Is this how the people in those little wooden barrels drifting toward the edge of Niagara Falls feel? I'm in my little barrel and everyone else is standing on the shore, hooting and hollering and cheering me on like drunken frat boys who think that this is the "best idea ever!" YOU CAN DO IT!

But they're not the ones going over the waterfall. In a barrel. By themselves.

This might seem like an idiotic analogy. I suppose it is safer today. You get a rubber raft instead of a barrel. And a life jacket. Maybe some really lovely drugs to make you forget that the roar you're hearing up ahead has no mercy for you. You got to go. There's only one way out. So you think to yourself: I can do this. Other people have done this. People do it every day.

So you bobble toward the misty edge and trust that if you do go under, if your barrel smashes apart and you are flung into the whirlpool, somehow you'll pop back up again, still able to swim.

And when you crawl and heave yourself up on the bank, people will throw a towel around you, slap your back, and call you a champ.

There won't be any medals. But still, I'm looking forward to meeting my new prize.