I am the kind of person who likes things wrapped up neatly in boxes, with clean lines and clear divisions. Shades of grey are not my thing. I've always been a fairly self-motivated, proactive person... so if I decide to do a thing, I typically invest myself 200% and get the job done without hesitation. If I decide to go after a new career path, I send out fifty resumes within 24 hours. If I decide to move to a new city, I make a plan and execute it - or sometimes I have simply moved to a city spontaneously with no plan at all. On the rare occasions when I have fallen in love it has generally hit me like a bolt of lightning rather than a slow burn, and I always knew after a single date if I wanted to pursue a relationship or not. Over time I've learned that most people do not operate like this.
I live by Yoda's credo: Do, or Do Not. There is no Try.
This is why the two major life lessons I seem to be working out this time around - Patience and Faith - are pretty tough for me. I'm not good at sitting in limbo, I never have been. I'm a "want it and want it NOW" kind of kid, I have trouble taking a deep breath and hanging on.
So far it seems like my 30s have been one big episode of 'hurry up and wait'. There are a lot of things I actively yearn for ~ things we are / I am working toward right now. Buying a home. Returning to excellent health. Getting our kids safely and successfully through childhood. Having time to volunteer. Planning world travel. Attending graduate school. Returning to work.
I think as a stay-at-home mother I've ended up putting a lot of things on hold while I focus my time and attention upon the three most important beings in my world. I love my role and I wouldn't trade the time I have with my kiddos for anything. That said, there is so much waiting involved with parenting. I waited approximately nine months each for these sweet, fractious little creatures to emerge from the womb. Just when we thought it would get easier, my husband and I realized that we would have to wait for several more months until they actually slept through the night. We waited for them to hit milestones like walking, talking, playing with other children, graduating from car seats to booster seats.
Most of my waking hours now consist of a lot of rushing tempered by a lot of waiting. I wait to pick my children up from school, wait for them to take their naps, wait for them to calm down so I can understand why they are having a tantrum. I wait for them to recover from illnesses, wait for hours in the doctor's office to get them vaccines and antibiotics, wait until my husband gets home from work so I can get ten minutes in the bathroom by myself to shower without a child hanging on my leg. I wait until they've gone to bed at night to work on cleaning the house, read or write, make telephone calls, catch up with my husband.
Right now I am waiting for the precious gift of time and space... hoping that we can find a babysitter or grandparent to cover us for just three hours sometime in the next week or so because I am desperate to get out of the house and go out for dinner or to see a movie. Childless people don't know the amazing FREEDOM they have to come and go as they please... they have no reason to consider how agonizing it can be to wait days and weeks just to have a few hours on their own or alone with their life partner.
Buying a house is a real act of patience and faith too. Getting pre-qualified for a loan takes time and investigation, finding the right broker to work with... then searching for the right neighborhood, the right house, the right price. To do it well may take months, and even so, we may ultimately decide against buying right now at all. I foresee ample taking of deep breaths, meditating, going for long relaxing walks and learning to take everything with a grain of salt as I practice detachment from the outcome.
Sometimes there is waiting for the other shoe to drop (and hoping it doesn't)... for example, this week I will also have a follow-up visit with my rheumatologist who will once again be checking me for signs of autoimmune disease progression. I am feeling very well overall and have no reason to believe that anything new is going wrong at this moment, but the simple act of waiting for my appointment with him is a little nerve-wracking. I find myself wondering what he will say, what the blood tests will reveal, whether I will have a fairly clean bill of health for another six months. There is a lot of waiting involved with healthcare and healing.
Waiting is a universal challenge. I'm sure even back in prehistoric times, cave people got sick of waiting for each other to finish sharpening sticks, return from a hunt, or wrap up paintings on stone walls. Even in today's fast-paced, technology-streamlined world every human is obliged to wait at some point during their busy day whether it be in highway traffic or in line at the bank.
So in thinking about the meaning of life in today's article, it occurred to me that part of the deeper meaning of life can be found in learning how to find true peace in the middle of uncertainty... how to relax while waiting.
As I've said I'm not an expert on patience. Waiting is something I'm really working on getting better at, so I am not yet at a place where I can offer any big answers. Over the years though, I've made a few notes about things that have helped me to wait more gracefully and optimistically for big life events to take place. Here are some of the best ones.
- Drink water. Sometimes when I'm feeling most anxious it turns out that I am also dehydrated. Drinking water is something few people do enough of, so it probably won't hurt and it might make you feel a whole lot better. I would venture a guess that drinking water probably helps people to wait more calmly than drinking beer.
- Exercise. According to the Mayo Clinic, exercise not only improves your mood and boosts your immunity, it also boosts your energy level, helps you to achieve a healthy weight, sleep better, have fun and... ahem... enhance your sex life. Exercising also fills time when you might be sitting around feeling anxious by a telephone, waiting for an important call.
- Journal. This can be a tricky one because you don't want to fixate on anything that might increase your general anxiety level. However if you use your journal as a tool to release the jumble of thoughts in your head keeping you awake at night, that would be a proactive way to give your mind some peace as you wait. Just don't spend a lot of time re-reading your entries... no sense stewing!
- Stay busy. My husband used to go on tour for up to five weeks at a time with his old band and I learned very quickly that the best way to watch the days fly by during his absence was to fill my own schedule so full that I barely had any down time at home in which to miss him. In those days I would work long days and then go out every night with my girlfriends. I find the "stay busy" trick works even better now that we have three children because my kids actually keep me so occupied during the day that 14 hour stretches fly by just in caring for their basic needs - food, transportation, attention, love, cleanliness and entertainment.
- Make lists. I definitely feel better when I make lists of all of the things I need to accomplish in the coming weeks and months until a big event may take place, and then checking off each small item as I achieve it. For example, pregnancy gave me a lot of items to check off on my lists before the babies arrived... like attending doctor appointments, interviewing doulas, taking birth classes, creating a birth plan, packing a hospital bag, picking out books, pictures and music to have near me during labor, etc. There were hundreds of tiny things to take care of to create the baby's room alone. By making lists and then placing neat lines through each bullet point as I accomplished it, I was able to feel less anxious about waiting for each baby to arrive.
- Prepare for the Worst, but Expect the Best. While it never hurts to have an umbrella handy on a rainy day, miracles happen all of the time. It's worth remembering that fact and seeking evidence of the miraculous in ordinary life. That said, making the physical and emotional preparations for a less-than-wonderful outcome will have the effect of propelling you forward and keeping you from getting stuck in worry or sorrow as you wait.
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