I distinctly remember a night as a 17 year old as a high school senior when I laid on my childhood bed sideways with my feet hanging off the side of the bed staring at the ceiling thinking about how a year from that night I’d be in college, away from home and away from my family and friends.  Growing up, it was essentially a foregone conclusion that I’d go to college, and I can honestly say that without an ounce of bitterness that some carry with them about the choices – or lack thereof – presented to them in their young adult lives.  Regardless of my parents’ wishes for me to go to college after high school, I always wanted to go to college too.  I liked school; I saw college as the next logical step.  That wasn’t the problem that night half a lifetime ago.

That evening, I was looking ahead to the future, and it was exciting.  College football games, meeting new friends, campus life – I had heard about it all.  It sounded great, but there was this allusive event so to speak that existed in my head – actually moving to college.  I looked around my room and the reality of it escaped me.  I knew it was coming in less than a year, but how?  What would this room that I lived in for 17 years look like after I moved?  (Little did I know college dorms are so small that my childhood bedroom remained virtually untouched from the way it was that night.)  How was I going to feel living away from home?  No familiar face each evening when I done with classes; no childhood friends to eat lunch with.  How was that possible?

Well, I knew it was possible, but it still remained an enigma until that early September years ago.

And it’s funny because 17 years later, I’m staring down another one of life’s unknowns – childbirth.  My husband and I are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our first child – a boy – at the end of the month!  (I can’t believe I can finally say I’m due this month even if it is still 4 weeks away!)  Just like that night half a lifetime ago, there are so many exciting and amazing things on the other side of labor and delivery.  But it’s those whens and hows that leave me on edge just like I was as a high school senior anxiously awaiting the move to college.  When is it going to happen?  How will it all go down?

Of course, I guess that’s what makes it such an exciting part of life.  As much as I want to know, sometimes not knowing makes it all the more special when it happens.