That Can't-Breathe Feeling: Anticipation

Source: Eleesha.com, Original inspirations

I've been excited lately, rather a lot. It's not that everything is working out perfectly for me. Far from it. It's just that I'm anticipating a lot of things.

I'm in the middle of my first project as an editorial assistant for Month9Books. As soon as I finish, they're going to send me another awesome pre-published book to pore through. In short, I'm loving this new job, at the same time I am terrified that I'll mess up and lose the opportunity. This results in that can't-breathe feeling, or what many authors have described as waiting with bated breath.

There are other areas of my life that give me that feeling, too. Of course, being a writer, I feel that way all the time about one project or another. Will this plot hole be resolved to the betterment of the book? Will my betas like the pages I sent? Will that agent ask for a partial, or a full? Will this finally be the one? Since I'm working on three writing projects simultaneously, I end up feeling the full emotional impact of these questions in triplicate.

Then there's the anticipation a parent feels for a child each time he shows his potential. I get that in triplicate, too. Hee hee. Three boys, triple the awesome, triple the mess.

Last but not least, it's been a long road with my husband's career and trying to end up where we want to be when we put down roots, finally get out of apartments, and decide to stay. We've moved 7 times and been married for 7 years. We just moved last November for the seventh time, and this isn't a permanent residence for us, either. As much as I may have loved being a rolling stone in my early twenties, that feeling is going away pretty fast as I near July and my thirtieth birthday. The feeling that's replaced it is...

anticipation.

It's not hope. It's not fear. It's just that in-between anxiousness that promises either/or. It's potential. It's almost promise.

Do you know this feeling? What has you feeling this way?