Awaiting a child, and the change of everything

Each time I tell someone that my wife and I are expecting our first child any day now, I get an eerily similar response: "Everything will change."

I have no idea what that means. Everything will change? When I press for answers, I get a knowing look. "You'll see," they say. Everything will be different.

I trust that these folks, when they're telling me everything's going to be different, don't mean that I'm going to have to get a new job, or a new house, or new friends. They probably mean that I'll spend less time in bars or fixated on the Internet, but they're never clear.

I'm impatient and hate surprises. I also love the life my wife and I have built for ourselves. I'll be honest: I don't want everything to change.

Probably as a meager act of rebellion, or some attempt to hang on to my carefree youth and extended adolescence, I stole away and took a road trip one recent weekend with a friend from graduate school. He and I piled into his car and drove toward the Minnesota sunset.

I'm not actually a rebellious person, so our road trip was well planned -- we had tickets to see a community theater production of the musical "Annie" at the Barn Theater in Willmar. A friend's children were performing as orphans, and my buddy and I promised to attend and be supportive of our friend and her kids.

As we entered the theater, I saw parents bending down to kiss their kids and wish them luck on stage. Anxiety and nervousness were plain on the parents' faces, but the kids seemed nearly giddy in their eagerness. Our friend noted that her life this summer had been "all 'Annie,' all the time," and that she'd seen the show enough times now to stand in for nearly any character.

The house lights dimmed, and I sat smiling at the occasional missed line or half-flat note. But when the stage lights spilled into the audience I could see those same parents, in rapt attention, mouthing their kids' lines or songs. Eyes would light up an instant before a kid spoke a line, and a smile would cross the parent's face after.

The smiles on the faces of the parents in the crowd showed no sarcasm or ironic detachment. There was something different. On the faces of these parents, everything was different.

I wonder what my daughter will look like, and I worry about the world we're creating for her. I don't know the answers to the million questions she's going to ask me. But I know what my face will look like when I sit in the audience and she catches my eye. And I know that everything's going to be different.

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Atom Robinson, St. Paul, is a community organizer. He and his wife, Annie Crawford, are expecting their first child this month.

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