Aw, we’re going to die and I never tasted cantaloupe.

It’s Sunday night. I’m sitting on the porch being introspective. Tomorrow begins week two of unemployment. I’m in such an odd phase right now.

The post-BGEA landscape is still taking shape. I’m having a hard time being productive with my days. There’s a lot I want to accomplish, but it’s hard to focus, to concentrate, to fit it all in.

And I don’t know what’s ahead. It’s like all of a sudden my life has changed so drastically. I’m no longer a newlywed, I own a house, we have a dog who just interrupted me. Children are next, and if the puppy is a small taste of what parenthood will be like, I’m so afraid things are just going to go faster and faster. I feel barely able to hold on now, barely able to collect my thoughts and know what I’m doing, barely able to breathe.

Is this what life is supposed to be like? Or are late night introspective porch sessions there, you just have to make time for them? Sometimes I don’t know what I’m doing, and sometimes I think that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

It’s Monday night. I’m sitting at the computer being introspective, again. Transcribing last night’s thoughts, and adding some of today’s. I’m sick today, though you really can’t stay home sick from unemployment. You just are sick, and that’s the way it is. A day lost to lazing and feeling bad, wishing you felt up to accomplishing something. Sometimes I think so many days pass by feeling that way without the convenient excuse of being sick. Of course that’s being pessimistic. Life flies by precisely when things are fun and you’re busy enough to not get to the really important things.

I had a dream last night that we had a baby. I should clarify — I had a baby. The fact that as a man I became a mom wasn’t the only bizarre thing, the pregnancy and birth came out of nowhere, happening in a matter of days. And there was really no birth or pregnancy. It just sort of happened. I didn’t go through labor, I didn’t go through morning sickness. One day I was just pregnant, and a few days later we had a baby in the hospital, as if pregnancy were a euphemism for a visit from the stork. It happened so quickly we didn’t even have a name for the baby, and I kept calling him the name a friend of mine gave to their recent child.

If I gained anything from the dream, it was a thankfulness for the nine month period of adjustment that is pregnancy. A seven pound life change isn’t just dropped in your lap without any warning. You have nine months to feel inadequate and prepare yourself for the unpreparable. Unlike buying a house, there is a time and even physical evidence of the radical change that is about to take place.

Change is good, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

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