from "Getting Closer," by Steven Millhauser

[The boy and his family are spending a day at the river. He's super excited to go swimming - he's been looking forward to it for a week, ever since his dad said they'd be going. But he's hesitating at the edge of the water.]

"What's wrong with him?...He loves this day, doesn't he?...But now, as he stands at the end of waiting, something is wrong. He's shaken deep down, as though he'll lose something if the day begins. If he goes into the river he'll lose the excitement, the feeling that everything matters becuase he's getting closer and closer to the moment he's been waiting for. When you have that feeling, everything's full of life, every leaf, every pebble. But when you begin, you're using things up. The day starts slipping away behind you. He wants to stay on this side of things, to hold it right here. A nervousness comes over him, a chilliness in the sun. In a moment the day will begin to end. Things will rush away behind him. The day he's been waiting for is practically over. He sees it now, he sees it: ending is everywhere. It's right here at the beginning. They don't tell you about it. It's hidden away in things. Under the shining skin of the world, everything's dead and gone."

i so know that feeling.