The Cup of Life

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by life? I have been feeling this way for the past few months now. There has been such a lot happening and going on and I want to stand still and think, sit and ponder, but life just doesn’t give me the time to do this.

The change in status from “single, perennially ready to mingle” to “not single, not wanting to mingle” is drastic. No: drastic would be an understatement. This has been a giant leap in an entirely different direction. People spend months thinking about it, hoping, praying, wondering..I didn’t. I walked straight in, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. That I am having a fabulous time now with my sweetheart is an entirely different issue. Point to be noted is: I didn’t get time to let this sink in. That I was going to spend the rest of the days in wedlock (this last word conjures the image of a prison if you ask me) didn’t occupy much of my mindspace.

No sooner did I start to understand and realize all the implications of married life when Life threw the next promotion my way. Another five months from now, I will be (inshallah) a father. There. It sounds so simple. Just another disyllabic word. Just another father. That’s what men do after all, isn’t it? Father children? That’s the great cosmic purpose of every man( pun not intended here people!!!). But I just can’t imagine it. I can’t picture a part of me, or someone that is partly me, being outside of me, cradled in my arms. I can’t picture my child. How can I, when it was almost just the other day that I had no woman to return an ‘interested’ glance? I have gone way beyond that point now, in almost no time.

It’s not that I am afraid. I am eager, we are eager. She more so, since the baby has literally rocked her world . The thing is, I was just about getting used to sharing my life with someone else. Very soon, we will have a little one sleeping in between. Going by the accounts of my brothers though, it seems like I will end up spending my nights on the cold mosaic floor of my bedroom. I just want to have time enough to relish this future, to think about it, to picturize it.

I want the world around me to stop revolving and let me savour this feeling. I am going to be a dad.
Cheerio folks!
Shain