Something to Carry

So it happened. The Alex Mill Perfect Weekend Tote is back in stock in espresso. I’d been kicking myself for not pulling the trigger earlier. Brown has kind of been my color lately.

My wife has her diaper bag. I need something of my own. Fare Filone will be expected to have their own bag for their own excursions.

You see, I kind of have a thing about bags. I want to be the type of person who has stuff to carry and places to be.

I tried once. Bought a Filson briefcase when I opened my first office. Every day, I carried my MacBook back and forth, along with a phone charger, a pair of glasses, maybe some fruit snacks. The computer never left the bag.

Next came the tote. This was more calculated. I was planning on proposing, and I knew the ring box would look obvious in my pocket. So, for months, I carried around a McNally Jackson tote. I put my keys and wallet in there so that, when the time came, carrying a bag wouldn’t look suspicious.

Now I’ll have plenty to carry. I just needed Alex Mill to restock the bag.

I check my email a lot. I can’t stand leaving anything unread, and when you shop as much as I do, there’s always something to delete.

When I saw the restock email, I struck. It even had my name on it.

The more you want something, the further away it feels.

After ordering, I compulsively check for shipping emails. But I knew this would be different. I’d added the hand-painted monogram.

What’s an extra three to four weeks when you’ve already been waiting?

Long enough that my daughter might get here before the bag.

This is fine. I’m pretty sure babies’ eyesight isn’t that good anyway. I’m behind on my reading. And she won’t remember whether her father’s custom tote arrived in time for her first walk around the block.

Preparing for a child feels like having to take the SAT on Christmas.

My wife takes her vitamins. I refill the water pitcher. My wife uses the birthing ball. I refill the water pitcher. She goes to endless doctor’s appointments. I drive and refill the water pitcher.

She grows a human.
I buy a tote bag.
I anticipate one day I’ll be useful again.

We’re building a world for this faceless and, in our case, nameless person, preparing for her coronation as the center of our universe. Yet I still feel utterly incomplete. I don’t have my tote.

This wait began with a gift.

“This isn’t fair,” I protested. “We said no gifts.”

She insisted it was nothing big. Just open it.

“Can’t we do it when you get back?” I bargained. She was leaving for a bachelorette trip and wouldn’t be here for Valentine’s Day. I thought I had more time to think of something.

My Valentine’s Day gift had arrived a day early: a positive pregnancy test.

The “will it happen”—the “can it happen”—ended. A grander wait began.

So I wait. At night, before I go to sleep, I anticipate the sleepless nights to come. The ones you’re warned about. The hours alone I’ll get with this person I’ve been waiting on, the rest of the world asleep.

Every time I feel a kick, punch, or whatever the hell she’s doing in there, I anticipate the person she’ll become. And when I spend $300 on a tote with a hand-painted monogram, I anticipate the places we’ll go, the diapers I’ll change, the outfits I’ll curate, and the snacks we’ll eat.

I write this three days out from your due date. The bag has not shipped. I am ready to meet you.

-SP

Update 10/19, 2:59 p.m: The bag arrived on Friday without a shipping notification. The skin-to-skin zip-up is loaded in. All is quiet on the western front.