I find waiting both difficult, and peculiar. Sooner or later, I find I am waiting…for something. Like change, waiting simply is. It wasn’t that long ago that I used to say “I suck at waiting”, and if you understood me to mean “I wait in frustration and make no effort to wait skillfully” then it would also be true that I sucked at waiting. Seriously, though, it generally sucked most when I invested in making it suck more than it had too, which is to say ‘at all’. Waiting is another practice wanting an opportunity to be practiced. Waiting gently, calming, and without investing in some moment beyond now is a good practice for building emotional resilience, strength of will, and perspective.
Do roses wait to bloom?
I am waiting, today. I am waiting gently, skillfully, and with contentment that the outcome is inevitable – at least, the result of there being an outcome is a given. What the outcome will be, in fact, is the thing on which I wait. It’s rather annoying, sure, and I feel impatience to be on with things come and go, increasing in moments of distraction, dissipating when I am focused on other things. There aren’t really a lot of words (of my own) to write about waiting – and it is such a common experience for humanity that I have nothing noteworthy to share. I wait. I breathe. I consider the moment when waiting is ended, and endeavor to take a practical approach that prevents my daydreams from escalating and causing disappointment when the waiting ends – real life is still on the other side of the waiting, and it cares not one whit what I am daydreaming about. 🙂
It’s been something like…2…almost 3 weeks, I think, of contentment. Sure, emotional weather comes and goes, but the climate in my own experience is quite nice. Some part of that contentment is a byproduct of standing on the threshold of an important change, embracing this moment eagerly, and even more eagerly looking ahead to the next experience. I am walking a path that I am paving myself, one choice at a time, and although this is generally true…I rarely feel it so fully. I could get very used to this feeling of being capable, calm, and content. (I hear the demons sniggering in the dark; their turn will come, and they know that’s true – because this too shall pass. Learning the practices to disarm them is part of what this whole journey is ‘about’.) I tend to be a woman of action, as much as I am ‘a planner’, and I’ve done some first-rate planning here – and now I am moved to take action. Waiting comes first. Waiting always goes to the front of the line, and waiting is. So, I meditate. I breathe. I walk. I smile. I consider the moment. I consider others in my experience. I consider my experience. I practice practices. I commit effort to other tasks. I follow through on details. Then there’s more practice… and still I am waiting.
Although waiting often feels endless, I am finding that my own tendency is to exaggerate the wait, and to run it together with other waiting; I’ve only been waiting to hear back on my lease application since Friday…only…realistically I knew I would not hear anything over the weekend (the office is closed), and the paperwork was submitted late in the day. So… waiting since…yesterday. It’s hard to fuss over a one day wait that I knew was coming. I still find that I do. It is the nature of eagerness to provoke a sense of waiting. I am learning to wait with great skill and contentment, certain that an outcome is an inevitability and that I am capable of turning the outcome – whatever it is – to an advantage.
There is tremendous freedom in connected self-reliance, and finding contentment instead of chasing happiness. I am surprised every day how much ‘contentment’ feels like what I thought I was seeking when I sought ‘happily ever after’. There is confidence in good planning, and security in knowing that the plan has a back up, and a back up to the back up, and alternatives to preferred choices that are every bit as comfortable for me as the choice I favor. It’s hard to ‘fail’ when there are so many possible successes in front of me.
So, I wait. Today is a good day for waiting, and waiting is. Today is a good day to enjoy this moment, now, unaffected by waiting – because it is a moment every bit as worth savoring as any moment to come, and it is mine to enjoy. Today is a good day to enjoy the journey – and the waiting.
Evening Light 