The Waiting Game

In general this stage of life is a frenzied rush against the clock, grab your coffee and keys and herd the kids out the door vibe. I haven't had a lot of downtime, definitely not like the good ol' days when I could sit at my laptop for hours and just write, talk on the phone, or have multiple texting conversations at once. There's barely enough time these days to chew a morsel of food enough times before swallowing, let alone follow down a complete thought. My attention is required all the time by the little ones (or the equal one), but seldom do I have time to just take a pause. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

I really hoped this would be the case. Right? I thought that after I got married I'd be released from the shackles of the Waiting Place. 

You know what I'm talking about - waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow, or waiting around for a Yes or No, or waiting for their hair to grow... 

And for the most part I have. I haven't had a lot of waiting really. 

Before marriage, I found myself needing to set exciting things into my schedule so I had things to look forward to. Now, my heart is so full. Are there challenges and benchmarks? For sure. And yes, I always need something to look forward to, something to look towards accomplishing, but it feels like it's much more baked into my life now. 

And that's why where I find myself at this present moment is so disconcerting and uncomfortable. It feels different. It's a culmination really of all the things I've taken for granted since I got married. But it's also a lesson. Yes, it's a lesson in patience, but also in life. The waiting game never stops. We can't skip to the good part. Inevitably we will have to trust the process and realize we're running a marathon not a sprint. It's just that we don't want to get stuck here. We need to power through or even embrace life's pauses. 

Perhaps it's about control (because aren't most things?). If we knew the time frame of this whatever situation, it wouldn't feel as sharp. If we knew we only need to hang in there 2 more weeks or what have you, it would be easier. But most of the time we don't know. We don't know if or when we'll get where or what we need. And so what now? I guess we can feel our feelings and be angry and sad. We can work on ourselves and strengthen our emunah and bitachon. (I actually find it really comforting that I don't understand all the ways of the world and maybe what I think I want or is good for me G-d maybe says is not or not yet. But that perhaps is a bigger topic for a different time.) We can also just embrace the messiness and ambiguity of life. If you can just show up for one role in your life while you're at this Waiting Juncture, maybe that's enough. 

But yes, this time can be really character building, if you let it.