Waiting For The Mail

All morning I waited for the mail.

It usually comes by 10:00 a.m.

So around 10:30, I started checking the mailbox.

Nothing.

Fifteen minutes later, I checked again,

positive, that somehow, I missed hearing the mailman.

Still nothing.

I went in to the kitchen and started cooking and thought,

“O.k. it’s 11o’clock, it’s got to be there by now.”

So, I opened the door, lifted the black metal lid, and still,

nothing.

I shut the door, 

embarrassed that the neighbors had seen me look for the mail three times now, 

like some OCD lunatic.

The weird part was,

I don’t even know what I was checking for.

I just wanted the mail.

(And some part of me was sure there was going to be something really fantastic in it.)

After all, Christmas was only three days ago.

What if there were some late Christmas card 

from someone who couldn’t get it together,

or even a present?

I felt like Charlie Brown.

It was possible.

Wasn’t it?

Around 12:30, after making lunch and eating it

in about four minutes,

I opened the door once more and saw the black metal lid half-open.

The mail had arrived!

I pulled it out and began rifling through it.

Three donation envelopes, two cheesy catalogues, and one redplum.com reader later,

I had gone through the mail.

All of it.

No presents.

No cards.

No green envelopes from the WGA.

It all went straight into the trash.

“All that anticipation for nothing”, I thought.

I do that a lot – think that what’s coming is going to be fantastic, 

only to find out that it really isn’t.

Like that new pair of slippers that I think I must have

will probably end up hurting my feet.

And that new set of sheets that I saw in the magazine

will probably be returned because they’ll itch my skin.

And that shirt I got for Christmas, the clingy one that reveals everything, 

will probably end up stuffed in a drawer never to be worn.

For me, it’s always the things that I never see coming that end up being the best –

The stranger who stops and hands me the glove that I dropped.

Or the tangerine I peeled that’s sweeter than any I’ve ever had, 

even though the previous two sucked.

Or the substitute ballet teacher who compliments 

my turnout even when my regular ballet teacher never has.

And even though I know all of this,

or say I know all of this,

the truth is,

every morning,

I’ll still be

waiting 

for the mail.