There have been a handful of moments throughout my 35 years on this planet that I might deem as “life-changing”.
The problem is, life rarely tells you that a moment is life-changing as you’re going through it, which means you fail to recognize the true significance of what you’re experiencing until much later. So, when that rare moment does come along, when you can mark the calendar and see a life-changing moment rapidly approaching, you should do everything in your power to truly appreciate it.
That’s where I find myself these days. There’s a big red “X” on the calendar marking the arrival of my firstborn child. Yes, my wife and I are having a baby.
Sometime in the next week or two I’ll wake up a husband and go to sleep a father. And when that happens I want to appreciate the sheer immensity of the situation. I want to mentally freeze that moment in time and hold onto it forever. I want to be fully aware of the gravitas of this miraculous, marvelous, truly life-changing experience.
When I tell people we’re having a baby they always want to know what we’re having. But we chose not to find out. We have no idea. We chose to keep it a mystery.
The response is overwhelmingly the same: “Oh, I could never do that.”
Why not?
Why would you not want to preserve the moment? Why would you not want to appreciate the mystery and relish in the excitement of this turning point in your life? Talk about a missed opportunity.
In a world of endlessly scrollable information this has been an absolute joy. We’ve gotten to wonder and speculate daily, not knowing what the future holds but growing more and more excited with every passing day. When that incredible, life-changing moment finally arrives we’ll get to find out together, just the two of us.
Well, better make that three.