Anticipation . . .

. . . sucks!

Remember that Heinz commercial that used the chorus from Carly Simon's song Anticipation?  How the two little boys sat there waiting for the ketchup to come out of the bottle?  And, remember how the one little boy told the other that it was well worth the wait?

The ketchup was probably good, but the anticipation--the waiting, well, I imagined that it sucked.

From the time that I was a child to today, I do not handle anticipation well--never had.  Early, as a kid, I learned that I would much rather be surprised than to be told to expect something that I had to wait for.  I did not handle that well . . . I would fret, frown, and worry.  What if something went wrong?  What if it wasn't like I was told it was going to be?  What if it didn't happen?  What if . . . what if . . . what if?  And, then add to that the fact that time moves so slowly once it is thrown into the anticipation hamper.  Waiting takes forever!

Growing older did not ease my uneasiness with anticipation.  It only complicated it because now I had experience to back up all of my worrying.  The "what ifs" only got more elaborate and complicated and ridiculous.  The only thing that growing older did for anticipation is to confirm what I had learned earlier--it sucks!

Anticipation pops its ugly head up every so often in my life despite my best efforts at trying to avoid it.  For example, because I drive approximately 40 miles to work each day, I like to have a heads up on what the weather is going to be like.  I want to know what the road conditions are going to be.  This is not good for someone who lives in Montana--especially for one who lives right on the snow line of most of the storms that hit our area.  Because of this I am a National Weather Service junkie who has to have a daily fix of the forecast for our area.  Basically this is an exercise in anticipation because the forecasters "anticipate" the weather to do such and such at such and such a time.  Therein lies the problem--they give a time in which all of this weather is to take place--usually days in advance of it actually happening.  Major anxiety develops over the anticipation of what is going to happen than the actual weather event ever developing.

Such was the case the past couple of days as the forecasters moved our expected weather for last night, today, and tonight from "hazardous" to "winter storm watch" to "winter storm warning".  The prediction went from rain mixed with snow showers to six to ten inches of snow.  They hammered this one for a couple of days--I fretted and worried, had sleepless nights, and even debated calling in sick to work to avoid the drive in such conditions.  The anticipation killed me!  And, in the end, it was pretty much nothing--no six to ten inches of snow, no hazardous conditions--nothing but wet roads! 

But that is pretty typical anticipation that for the most I am used to.  Yet, lately there has been another type of anticipation that has been playing havoc on my life.  This has to do with becoming a grandparent.  The Prodigal Son is expecting his daughter to be born soon and mistakenly told his parents a projected date--WRONG THING TO DO!  He can ask his mother and she will testify to this mistake--she experienced it with the birth of each of our four children.  Don't give me a date as it just starts the ball rolling.  I think through each of the journeys towards the births of our children I drove the wife and the doctors crazy with my "baby anxiety".  I was more of a nervous wreck than the wife.  My mind worked overtime.

And, so it is now, as we are in the "time frame" of when our granddaughter is to be born.  It can be any time and because of that I keep my ears open in order to hear the phone ring with the news.  But, this birth is complicated for a variety of reasons: the mother has Lupus and that has made this pregnancy difficult for both the mother and grandchild to be--it has been tough and no one will know the full effects until the child is born; the mother is mad at the Prodigal Son and is not communicating with him--it has been a roller coaster journey and been difficult on everyone; because the mother is mad at our son and won't communicate, there is a good possibility that we might not even get to see our grandchild without having to go to court; and, the fact that this is all playing out way down south in Colorado--a long ways from Montana--it is hard to wait.

I know that I am not the only one feeling the anticipation.  I know this is killing my son.  I know that it is killing my wife.  I know that it is killing me.  And yet, we wait.  Not patiently, mind you, but we wait.  The fact is that the ketchup takes too long to come out of the bottle, the weather is never what the forecaster predicts, and babies never arrive when you want--they come when they want to and not a minute sooner.  Yeah, anticipation sucks . . .  so I might as sit back and listen to Carly Simon.  She sums it up so well--enjoy!

Anticipation . . . pffft!