Last week I spent nine hours outside a waiting room at Maine Medical Center with the family of a life-long friend while he and his wife endured the tail end of a 24-hour childbirth. 

 It was easy to compare the hospital waiting room to the Dunkin’ Donuts in Scarborough a few weeks ago, where what seemed like hundreds of people waited for an hour or more to catch a glimpse of Boston Red Sox center-fielder Jacoby Ellsbury when he descended on the restaurant as part of an advertising campaign. There was an awkwardness in the air as complete strangers pushed and prodded each other to cram inside the small building, similar to the feeling hanging over the hospital waiting room as uncomfortable metal seats were filled by strange families of other expectant mothers and fathers.

We descended like paparazzi when the doctor finally allowed us in; his first memories will be of blurry smiling faces behind blinding camera flashes. Within minutes the newborn had been passed around the room and was ready to feed for the first time, so the medical staff kicked us all out of the room. In less than a minute the entire sleep deprived family was out the front door of the hospital and into their vehicles, some just beginning a two-hour ride back to Boston. 

It was similar to the scene at Dunkin Donuts, where, after a few questions and no autographs, Jacoby was whisked away from the hungry crowd as efficiently as the nurses at Maine Medical Center cleared the delivery room, simply announcing “It’s time to go,” to the dozen people surrounding my friend’s new son. 

No doubt Jacoby’s press agents whispered the same phrase into his ear over the barrage of camera flashes and the mutterings of the crowd. The parking lot exits were clogged shortly after Jacoby’s disappearance. 

For most, it’s a rare occasion to be thrust into a spotlight, maybe at a birthday party or graduation, a special performance or family gathering. For some the attention can’t be over soon enough; I brag about being the first in my undergraduate class to return my cap and gown, (yes, we had to return them) within five minutes after the graduation ceremony was over. Others, like my wife, who wore her graduation gown the entire day while posing for pictures and introducing her classmates and family members to each other, are sad to see the spotlight fade.

Newborns and major league baseball players can’t decide when to turn in the graduation gown, it’s not their decision to end a lullaby early or prolong a press conference. They’re committed by occupation and circumstance, forced to wait for some parental authority to decide when enough is enough.

I am discovering the same is true of newspaper articles. While some happily fade quickly into the print media background, others are suddenly thrust onto Web pages and blog sites, discussed in meetings and elections, quoted and debated. All a writer can do is cry like a newborn who has been kept up too late, or smile for the cameras like a star athlete. 

Whether you’re spending the days between newspaper editions packed into a popular bookstore or alone at your dining room table, I hope the few minutes you actually might spend reading are over too soon rather than not soon enough, and I’m glad I have editors who can tell me “It’s time to go” until the next deadline.

– Nate Jones