Monday, November 02, 2009

What am I Feeling?

I need a word for that feeling you get when you've just held a smiling baby, you hand her off to someone else, and yet the part of your body against which she was resting remains warm, then gradually becomes colder than the rest of you. It's not quite horror, because you know whatever it is, she's done it before, and you can take it. Is it hope, because there is the possibility that the sensation is imaginary? Or maybe hope because maybe this time your clothes aren't stained with unfortunate baby byproducts*. Anticipation, because you won't know until you look down (or take a deep breath)?

Somehow, those options seem too positive. What would describe this peculiar feeling?

*Photo of baby byproducts withheld.

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