Waiting
I have a really, really, really hard time waiting for things. It’s one of my struggles that is always on my New Year’s Resolution list.
“Will be more patient”
It usually comes right after “Will be calmer”
Right now I am in a place in my life where I am waiting for a lot of things. BIG things. 3.5+ years ago I was beginning my Master’s program in social work, excited and nervous and alive with the possibility of my big bright future. I was beginning a relationship with a man that has turned out to be the person I will spend the rest of my life with. Now I am graduated, living with said man, and waiting for so many things…
I am waiting for a job, that perfect job that everyone wants when they graduate with a shiny new degree. Unfortunately for me I graduated during one of the worst economic recessions in our history and social services are sadly being cut left and right. It is sad for me, but it is also sad for the people that desperately need those services during this time. I have applied to many different jobs and opportunities, all looking at first glance like “my dream job”. I don’t even know how many nights I have gone home at this point and confidently declared to Ben that “I found my dream job today, I applied, and I have a really good feeling about it!” I will continue to do this because I believe in putting positive energy out into the universe. The alternative feels dreary and useless to me. Alas, I still don’t have said dream job. And in fact I have remolded what my dream job looks like countless times over the past 4 months.I have no doubt I will continue to do so.
I am also waiting to be engaged. Now, before I get started on this topic, I know that this is 2011 and if I was so desperate to make this man my husband I could just pluck up my feminist notions and ask him. As my mom recently said so perfectly though, I am a confusing blend of traditional and modern. I live in NYC and have my heels strongly rooted in the ideas of equality. I also have generations of traditional in my soul though and without discussing it, my boyfriend and I knew that he would propose and I would wait for that moment. Don’t think this means I have waited quietly. There have been moments of sheer emotion in which all I can muster up the voice to say is “WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!” But these things take time and in the end our journey through this maze of choosing someone to be your life partner has been one beautifully painful lesson in how to be patient. I know with 100% certainty that I will look back at this time and cherish it. We have never been closer. We have never been more honest and real. We have never been more in love. In the series of moments that are my life, this series is by far the best.
I think a part of my uneasiness in the waiting is that our culture puts so much emphasis on rushing through things, getting to the finish line, and when you get there building a new finish line to get to. Our egos get all tied up in everything we do and we begin labeling things. “Old, young, smart, stupid, right, wrong”. We get lost in the labels and life all of a sudden isn’t about the moments and the energy of those moments but it is about what we look like and what our choices look like.
I’m not good at waiting. I’m better at it then I was last year though and I will continue to work on it. Sometimes I feel like a runner hunched down waiting for the gun to go off. There is no gun though, and this is my life. Right now in all this uncertainty and in all this waiting, this is my reality. So maybe I’ll just stand back up and stop waiting.
My friend put it perfectly when giving me advice about my struggle with waiting. She said “it will happen eventually. It just takes time….but time can be incredibly obnoxious.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.
