Not Good at Waiting

All right, I admit it, I’m not good at waiting.

Not good at waiting around for news, to hear back from someone, for something to happen that is in the air so to speak. I get edgy. I need to move around. I pace like a caged tiger. I fidget and can’t concentrate very well unless I force myself.

As I write this I am waiting to hear the outcome of a job interview. I don’t think I’ll get it as there are not only the external candidates, but the internal ones as well. I’ve lost out in that scenario before, ‘pipped at the post’ they said. But I have not choice but to wait. And the longer the wait the less confident I am of a good outcome.

My mind races, it goes over little things again and again. It runs back over big things as well.

It it is prime example of not being in control. I’ve never given birth, so I don’t know what that waiting is like, but I have waited for death. I have waited for things I’ve seen to happen. Waited for days of supreme importance to dawn and unfold. I have waited for buses, planes and trains. I have waited for nights that are too long to end and days that are too long to come to a close. I have waited for something I’ve counted on happening or doing  only to find out at the last moment it might not and the disappointment is proportional to the length of the wait.

I am not good at waiting. Most of the things I have waited for are completely out of my hands. They are in the hands of the gods or in the hands of others.

Sometimes I wish I was more comfortable or competent at waiting. Of knowing how to use the time between what I am experiencing in the present to what will be revealed in the future coincide. But, alas . . .

I do know that in certain instances when I am in control of the waiting that to do so risks never. Put off something indefinitely and it becomes forever. I have had that happen often enough that I try not to be caught in that situation, or at least as seldom as possible.

In the throes of waiting I find doing almost impossible; I’m pushing hard to write this post. Each time I pause I have to yank hard on the reins of my thoughts to bring them around again to the task at hand.

So I am waiting still. Holding on and hanging in until the phone rings and then I carry on with a different level and intensity of waiting and doing until the next time. I do wish I was better at waiting.