Is the kettle waterproof?

April 12, 2016

It’s been raining for 2 solid days. The kinda rain that even makes a sailor frown. Wetter than getting wet. Miserable. Cold. Just plain ugh. Oh and mildly windy. Well, gale force. It’s enough to make me visualise a couple of heated seats custom fit to the deck on the commute this morning. A kettle, maybe? Waterproof of course.

Pipe dreams aside the weather banging on the windows is a reminder that this trip won’t be easy, but equally as I’m the internal optimist, a reminder to enjoy the good days when they come. Remember that feeling of the sun on my face. That feeling of being free. And hell or high water freedom will come soon enough.

In about 32 odd days it will all be very real. As some have suggested — “the pressure will be on.” I’m not sure though. Of the pressure that is, not the trip. I remember the day I got married. All the preparation, all the shuffling. People giving you that strange wiggle as they come toward you oogling, “Ohhhhh, you look nervous!” I wasn’t. I was miles away from nervous. What did I need to be nervous about? I’d met the right person and now we were just going to kinda rubber stamp it. Have some fun. Celebrate the day.

A few years on, and my wife may concede that there has been 3 of us in this marriage for about a year now. One Wild Ride has, like any child, consumed most of the waking hours we call our own after work. It’s consumed the hours of many others within the One Wild Ride family too, themselves surrogate babysitters and godparents. On May 14, weather permitting, it will be time for One Wild Ride to take it’s first steps. The ones every parent wants to be there for. And in that moment the memories of watching it grow, crawl, stumble, wobble and now stand. No sense of pressure, just that same sense I felt on the church steps. That feeling that I’ve made the right choices, set the right course and followed my heart to where it belongs. Even if there are no heated seats.

But a waterproof kettle? Hmm.