I’ve spent much of my life waiting. Waiting for Christmas morning. Waiting for school to get out for the summer. Waiting for my husband-to-be to get out of the Marines and come home. Waiting for school to be finished so I could start teaching. Waiting to get my Master’s degree so I could run my own reading clinic. Waiting for babies to be born. Waiting. And while I waited, I wasn’t really in the moment.
When the worrying gene was passed out, I got my share and then spent a lot of time nurturing and polishing it. I lost sleep. I didn’t eat, couldn’t eat, then over-ate in an effort to exert control over things not up to me. 99% of things about which I worried didn’t happen. This fact, plus the fact that I KNEW in my head I had no control, didn’t stop me from worrying. And while I worried, I wasn’t really in the moment.
It has taken me a long time, but I am finally living in the moment. I still wait, but I LIVE while I’m waiting. I may worry, but I LIVE while I’m worrying. I take the time to not only notice things, but really appreciate the beauty around me – how beautiful the weather is; I’ve come to treasure each time my 95 pound yellow lab, Amber, gets her top half in my lap while I’m trying to type a blog post, licking my face, making me laugh. I stop by my husband’s chair in the living room on the way to or from – or both – taking the time to kiss him on the head, hug him, and make him smile. I take time to play in my art room, smiling like a kid with fingerpaint, trying something new and having FUN whether I do something reasonable or just make a mess. :0) I can insulate myself from much going on in our world today, doing the little I can to help a bit – trying to protect those I love from the bad consequences (about which I worry) and ignore what I can.
If I live another hundred years or so, I may have this!
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I am not good at waiting, I am far too impatient. One of the things that hit me the hardest actually, moving here to Germany from the UK was the waiting. Before that I was more doing.
The first thing was waiting on everyone else coming home. Be it my husband or the kids. Then waiting on them finally finishing their homework. That one took some patience. But the worst thing here is waiting at the doctor’s. I have four kids so we are always at the doctor’s. Or the dentist. Or the orthodontist. The good thing is they don’t rush you through the appointment. The bad thing is you regularly spend at least a good hour waiting just to be seen, and that’s before they say, ah we’ll just do a blood test, or take an x-ray or whatever and you’re sent off to wait again. Yesterday we were at our asthma doctor, just for a ‘quick’ check-up and we took 2 hours and 40 minutes.
I think all of the waiting fed my impatience!! We’d take stuff ‘to do’ with us. Homework, books to read, snacks, at some point I was even working on a book on my laptop in waiting rooms. But still, it led me to two very negative impressions. One I felt like our time was worth nothing to doctors. And two, at the peak time, we were averaging 15 appointments as a family a month and I felt like my children were losing their childhoods to waiting rooms.
Now that I’m getting older though, I quite like the slowed down pace. It’s nice to have the time to appreciate life as it passes you by, isn’t it? There’s less of a need, somehow, to be in the thick of it.
I worry too. Especially about the kids. I notice that’s diminished a lot too, since two have moved out.
To be 14 again!!! And to know what we know now!! 😀
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I loved your note. Thanks for writing. It’s good to know I’m not the only one who has spent too much of her life waiting and worrying. I’m glad to hear that you are also taking advantage of the opportunity to appreciate and savor things now. We would tear up the world if we had it to do again! :0)
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We would I think!!
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