The next day passes in a strange haze, an opiating like combination of exhilarating excitement and dazed confusion. I stay home for fear of someone interpreting the truth about your existence from the occasional dropping of my draw and widening of my eyes as realisation intermittently settled in. I can almost hear the collision of my old life and this new life before me.
I have been having wakes during the night for a couple of weeks now. Jumping from deep sleep to wired and wakefulness in just seconds. I had thought it might have been the coffee, I love my coffee, not just a moderate morning espresso more like a day long intravenous drip. Then there is this pain that continues to pester. I am almost scared to go to the toilet in case I lose you, in case you slip out of me. It's like a period pain, not worse than that, not agonising but unsettling, a reminder not to take you for granted, a reminder that there are no guarantees you are here to stay. You are still fragile, still so new to the game of life.
I have been having wakes during the night for a couple of weeks now. Jumping from deep sleep to wired and wakefulness in just seconds. I had thought it might have been the coffee, I love my coffee, not just a moderate morning espresso more like a day long intravenous drip. Then there is this pain that continues to pester. I am almost scared to go to the toilet in case I lose you, in case you slip out of me. It's like a period pain, not worse than that, not agonising but unsettling, a reminder not to take you for granted, a reminder that there are no guarantees you are here to stay. You are still fragile, still so new to the game of life.
Then gradually as the week has gone on I have started to embrace you like a warm ray of sunshine. Your Dad and I spend Saturday by the sea. First down onto the pebble beach, watching the kids throwing stones. A young lad scampers up the cliff edge like a mountain goat. I watch with a mixture of horror and admiration, hoping maybe you will be brave like that. We walk, you, your Dad and I, along the Coastal Path where the poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Alfred Lord Tennyson used to walk. I feel it appropriate to take you here where people so distinguished once walked as if I might imbue you with some magic. It is a fresh but bright and clear day and you can see out across the still waters of the Severn Estuary. We stop for pictures in a small look out tower. The sun so low in the sky it's turned the sea into a blanket of gold. We finish in a busy little teahouse where I sip on a cup of fresh peppermint tea. Tea, and even more so peppermint tea you see is quite an unusual drink for me, usually preferring a large glass of something dry and white. I don't mind the sacrifice, not for you.
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