Prologue to my Big Brother Adventure

7:06am I decided to forfeit my Mile this morning so that I could focus on getting myself to the personal interview I have today with an enrollment coordinator from the Big Brothers association. My interview is at eight, and I plan to go straight to work after.

I'm on the subway already, and I'm feeling excited and a little anxious. My goodness - this is sobering; I'm going out in order to bring someone new into my family. If this is how I'm feeling just for going to a screening interview, how much more is that magnified for someone who is actually going to pick up an adopted child to bring them home for the first time, or for someone who just had a new child born?

For many months now I have been very disconnected from my feelings about becoming a Big Brother. It's been a waiting game and I have been playing it patiently and keeping my energy and focus on other areas of my life during that time. Becoming a Big Brother was something that felt unreal, it was an exercise in beaurocracy - but it's starting to sink in now. It's starting to get real.

This is something that will change my whole life. Again.

9:42am I arrived at Yonge and Eglinton about twenty minutes before my scheduled appointment. That's enough time to pop into Starbucks for a muffin and a bottle of drinkable yogourt. Breakfast of the champions? Champion yuppie perhaps.

My interview takes an hour and a half and is quite pleasant. At the end, I learn that the next step is that they will run the police check on me; it should take a few days. The coordinator asks me for a phone number of a particular contact that she wants to call for another reference check. I don't have the number with me; it's in the Contacts list of my own PDA and that's out being serviced. I will have to look it up on my PC when I get home.