Changes

The day had started out relatively normal. Thomas had woke up at 5, brushed his teeth, flossed, and made his morning smoothy to take to work with him just like he had the past one thousand days before that. Aside from the random chore or inane conversations he had with his pregnant wife, Melissa, some mornings, everything typically remained unperturbed in his day to day operations.

He rode the bus to work with two transfers that he didn't actually mind because it gave him time to make his to-do list for the upcoming day. On todays agenda was a monotonous day of making his bosses happy while doing all the back breaking labor that would get them off of his already broken back. Routine. Thomas arrived at work at seven thirty and got to work organizing his team to head a cleaning job. A simple job that was made not so easy by the torrential rain that decided to fall on them that morning. Everything was going off without a hitch. Until his phone rang.

He had been expecting this call for eight and a half months but still couldn’t believe this was the day.

“My water broke,” Melissa said.

Thomas didn’t know how long he stood there in the freezing rain, gobsmacked at the words that were coming through the receiver.

“Are you still there?”

“I’m coming” said Thomas.

He hung up the phone and continued to stand in place, unable to move. His days ran through his mind. The daily grind of his daily wake up, his commute to work, coming home and making dinner, watching a movie, reading a book, and going to bed promptly at nine to do it all again the next day. As boring as it all seemed, Thomas liked his little life and was reluctant to see it all changing before him. To move from this spot was to make the first step toward his new life and he wasn’t sure he was ready to do that just yet. So here he stood, in the freezing rain, clinging onto the last minutes of the normal, selfish existence that he had built for himself over all of his years on this Earth. Everything was so simple to him but to have this new life waiting for him was daunting and he wasn’t sure that he would be able to handle it. The responsibility, the guidance and the patience to guide this pure being through this world littered with trepidation, hate, and anguish. He felt like he could barely manage it himself so how was he supposed to guide his child through all the twists and turns of our imperfect society.

His team continued to work in front of his eyes but he barely noticed it. His mind was racing a mile a minute on the gravity that three little words had on him. He knew he was happy to be having a child. He had wanted to be a father since he had gotten his life straightened out after some growing up that needed to happen in his twenties. His experiments with hard drugs and alcohol, fighting and fornicating with anyone who would let him had been times that he didn’t regret but couldn’t help but to wonder about the transmission of genes that would be passing to his offspring. Would his child, along with a subpar hairline, be cursed to be as woefully misguided as he had been in his youth? Cursed with the gift for self destruction and misguided anger that got him into trouble more often than not. Would his penance in this life be a child that would be cursed with these things that had plagued him throughout his? Would that be his fault? The rain only got harder against his face but still Thomas barely registered. Trapped in a whirlpool of self doubt and anxiety that he was not familiar with. He had always been a level headed guy but now he was thrown for a loop.

Through this tumult, he found a strange thought whispering to him from beneath the surface. A thought that he typically doesn’t allow himself to have but knows that it is the most important thought in his head. He could hear it ever so faintly;

“You are good enough.”

Thomas allowed this thought to play out. Maybe he was good enough to be a father. Maybe the weight that he carried on his shoulders wouldn’t break him. Maybe the trials and tribulations of his life wouldn’t be passed on to his child. Or maybe they would.

But, either way, Thomas was proud of the man that he had grown up to be. Sure his life wasn’t what he had dreamed of when he was a kid. Maybe in a different life he would have been a rockstar or a doctor or a respected politician, if such a thing exists. But this is the life that he had and through all the ups and downs that had come his way, he had always survived and, in many cases, thrived.

His routine might change and things might become difficult at times but he was confident he would handle it all, as he had with all the other things in his life up until this point. The excesses of his youth would be something that he would continue to make peace with and maybe he could use them as life experiences that would better help his child through any challenges that happened in the future. Overall, maybe he was good enough.

He didn’t know how long it had been since he had hung up. Maybe a minute or maybe twenty but his clothes were sufficiently soaked through. The glasses on his face were spotted with water that it made looking through them like looking though a rain spattered windshield. His work boots were filled with water that, disgustingly, made him think of his wife’s water breaking. Thomas took a deep breath and made his first step toward his new life.