I feel as though I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, preparing to dive. I will probably survive, but this is a dangerous undertaking, and I may end up paralyzed, or an amputee. I have been preparing for this dive for a very long time, and now the moment has arrived. I try to focus, to visualize a triumphant ending, yet honestly, I know I can’t control the outcome.

I feel like a caterpillar born into a hostile climate. I have managed to find enough food, as well as a place to hang while I create my chrysalis, which I have constructed very carefully, as it must protect me during the most vulnerable moments of my life. For a very short time, just after I emerge, I will be powerless to defend myself from threats ranging from hailstones to wasps. I have no choice but to proceed, no path that avoids risk.

I might be a cancer victim, filled with a growth that is killing me, on the eve of a risky operation that will provide a small but real chance of reclaiming my health. A myriad of other results is also possible.

Perhaps I am a pedestrian walking downtown on a windy day, on the sidewalk below a high-rise under construction, just as the ironworkers lose control of a hanging girder. I neither see nor hear it hurtling toward me, though I know, I’ve always known, that construction sites can be dangerous. I don’t have a choice, I have to walk this way to try to reach my destination. Whether I succeed will be decided in moments, though not by me.

I feel like a passenger on a roller coaster that has just pulled away from the loading platform and started up the steepest grade, where there is no turning back. This scary ride is going to happen and I am going to be on it. This particular coaster, though, was very recently repaired after it jumped the tracks, injuring a few people. Then groups of other people, with a wide range of knowledge and opinion about how roller coasters work, built different pieces of it in different places, and just now it has all been put together, or maybe it’s being put together while I’m riding it, just-in-time.

Four more days.