Good Grief

The day of my and The Qweenbean's wedding, a lot of people asked if I was nervous. Even leading up to the wedding, people kept asking if I was having second thoughts. I wasn't. I didn't. I could say without exaggeration that it was the happiest day of my life. Up to this point anyway- I'm still holding out for a beer truck to crash in front of our house. I was nervous when asking if she would marry me. I'll spare you the details, but The Qweenbean and I weren't even speaking to each other the night I showed up at her house and asked if she wanted to be married to me. Crazy, right? I mean, why should I have been nervous- who wouldn't want to marry me- deal with my nonsense, pursue some nebulous life of ministry, poverty, my skinny legs? Big deal that she and I weren't speaking. I could probably walk up to any number of women I presently do not speak with and ask them to marry me. I'd bet I'd get at least one "yes".

Still, I was nervous about asking but not nervous once that hurdle was overcome.

Long time readers of my globowebjournal are misspending their few days on earth but my also remember that The Qweenbean will be having a baby... in exactly a month according to the professionals. I am not nervous about that. There is some anxiety about our present "jobs" situation, I have a greater sense of urgency about finishing school and more intention about making our life of service more structured- perhaps even traditional, concerned about making time to complete the things that must be completed to make room for a baby, afraid I might forget important details from our baby-having class. But I'm not really nervous about any of that.

I am, however, completely, irrationally, horribly gripped by a paralyzing sense of terror.

When I was a kid I was terrified of sheer drops. I wasn't afraid of heights. I was afraid of precipices: cliffs, roof ledges, the front row of a stadium tier above the first, the extreme back row of a stadium level facing out- any extreme drop.

As I stand here (I am in fact standing at this moment) I do not feel as if I will fall one way or another. I am not worried that a gust of wind will blow me off balance or that some involuntary reflex will make me leap forward. I cannot recall ever in my life being possessed by the desire to simply hurl myself to the ground. But if I were standing at the edge of a 100 ft. drop, I would, when I was a kid, have had those fears. In the world of possibility, I suppose that anything can happen while standing at a ledge, so even now, as I am supposed to know better, I still tremble at ledges. It's not heights. I do all kinds of things that require I be high above the ground. It is drops.When I am at one level of stability, overlooking an extreme change to another- I am terrified.

This is perhaps like that terror. I am overwhelmed by the quantum change that is coming. I have these images of doing incredibly stupid and irrational things. Not like getting her Bratz Dolls, I mean really inexplicable and horrible things like not feeding her, forgetting her someplace, dropping her down the stairs. I worry about doing things that make no sense because I have no knowledge of what the world that is coming will be like. I have no choice but to proceed, but I have no way of knowing how to proceed because that world is completely foreign to me. I should be clearer. I move on, but the coming world is not a matter of choice. It doesn't matter that countless other human beings have done this- I haven't.

The way I know to be now is fine for this world in which the baby is safely (safely enough) out of sight. The way I know to be now may have nothing to do with how I will need to be once she is breathing my air... Our air.

I've never had to breathe our air. I wonder how it will compare to breathing my air.

I'm going to vomit.

Just Keep Swimming
Positively 4th Street- Bob Dylan
Without God I Could Do Nothing- Mahalia Jackson
We're Not Gonna Take It- The Who
Since I've Been Loving You- Led Zeppelin
New Feeling- Talking Heads