The heading reads morbidly but it conveys some of the apprehension I am feeling. Management and I have been married six years, together for nine, and from our first date to this morning have never really spent a day apart excepting the very rare business trip. It has always been just the two of us and about us in our marriage. Now that her belly has really popped it is strikingly clear that the picture will now be of three. It is a huge shift in the dynamic.
Don’t get me wrong, I am excited, more excited about the arrival of our child than I have been about anything else in my life but there is this nagging sense of loss itching the back of my head. I am losing my place as I know it and I can never go back. That phrase, “You can never really go home,” is fitting in that my feelings are eerily similar to the one I had when I left my parents home and when we got married. For the sake of piling on maudlin cliches, doors close and doors open. Certainly our child presents an opportunity to bring us closer, and very likely it will, but that latch clicking behind me is bothersome.
Contingency planning has always been a big part of how I live my life; it isn’t that I am risk adverse rather I prefer to plan for risk and my planning always includes ways to return the situation back to the starting point. Trouble with massive life changes is that there is no way to restart, its a trajectory so the annoying little project manager in me crumples his Gantt charts and stomps around muttering to himself. Our child was planned but damn if I fully realized these emotions sweeping over me and my frustration that I cannot plan, only approximate.
You said it. There IS something sad about that whold change. It’s a wonderful change, but it’s also a huge upheaval. Congratulations and good luck!
I suppose Management and I just need to make the most of it while we can. I’m just going to miss the us of now but I’ll have a wonderful child to help me forget.