Candles, Shadows

I feel compelled to post just to assure the adoring fanbase that I've not yet received my package from the stork, although I'm sensing his imminence with each Braxton Hicks contraction that seems to compress my pelvic floor, like an elevator car descending down the hatch.

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This morning I cried runny faucet tears during my commute for twenty straight minutes. The culprit: Classic Disney, volume 2, track 13. Go 'head. You try thinking about your unborn child and telling him/her "I'll be your candle on the water/'Till ev'ry wave is warm and bright" and you try not to get a little Paula Abdul verclempt. Just as I typed that lyric, I started getting misty eyes again. Just like I did at lunch when I went out and, stoopit hor-motional one forgot to change the track, and another leak was sprung.

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Aside from my face becoming a freak map of mascara tributaries, my cheeks are so puffy. My hands look cartooney. My once sinewy ankles look like the legs of an old woman who refuses to wear sensible shoes and puts on wrinkley stockings and too-tight heels just to go to the grocery store.

As my friend Renda noted, I am but a shadow of my former self.

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I'll be your candle on the water
This flame inside of me will grow
Keep holding on you'll make it
Here's my hand so take it
Look for me reaching out to show
As sure as rivers flow
I'll never let you go
I'll never let you go
I'll never let you go...