I'm in the last few days before my first child is born. It's like that half-second where you're hovering in the air, the jump from the dry pier behind you and the inevitable plunge into cold lakewater below you, but not quite here yet.
People like to ask "Are you ready?" and I know that if I say yes, then I'm not ready, but saying "no" doesn't feel right either. I think parenthood is something you're not really ready for until you've already done it. One of my great comforting thoughts is knowing that millions of humans have been born and raised successfully with far fewer resources, less knowledge, and scarcer support networks than what we have now.
It's one part new roommate, one part dependent family member, one huge part self-awareness training and several other parts, some of which I'm beginning to glimpse, and some that I have no inkling of yet whatsoever.
I like to think that I'm providing tall shoulders for my son to stand on, having stood on tall shoulders myself throughout my life. And I know that this does not mean that he won't face any problems in his lifetime, but that hopefully, he'll have more interesting ones to solve than me.
