This Is Your Life

I sat next to my 2-year-old who laid in bed, not taking a nap. She wiggled and turned over and over. She grabbed my arm, which caressed her forehead and hair, and tried to play with my watch.  The whole time I thought,

- When she falls asleep I'll get started on the laundry.
- When she falls asleep I can respond to emails.
- OMG, when is she going to fall asleep?
- It's been fifteen minutes, how long is this going to take?

And then we made eye contact, and she gave me this mischievous I-know-I-should-be-sleeping-but-I'm-so-cute smile, while hugging my arm.

During a similar waiting season of my life, my friend Cindy told me something like, "The waiting is your life. You have to start living in the waiting." As my 2yo made eye contact and she smiled at me, not sleeping, Cindy's words ran through my mind, and they changed my life, again.  Call me slow, but it takes two or seven times for me to really start to learn something.

Stinking waiting. I hate waiting. And if there's something I hate more than waiting, it's waiting without knowing.  At least if I know for certain that some outcome will take place, I can try to imagine it, prepare for it, anticipate the joy of it. But waiting without knowing, it's torture.  Depending on what you're waiting for, I guess.

On this particular day, I was just waiting for chores.  But the moment Cindy's words flooded my mind again, it was the bigger waiting that also came to mind.  Waiting for the perfect part-time job. Waiting for a tenure-track position for my love. Waiting for healing in that one relationship. Waiting without knowing if and when those things might take place.

Now my mind is like the highways in Houston, where 59 and I-10 and 45 all criss-cross.

Songs frequently pop in my mind, usually connected to a phrase someone says.  So when I heard Cindy's voice saying, "The waiting is your life," Switchfoot's song began to play, "This is your life, are you who you want to be?" (which I've decided to listen to while I continue writing).

In the room with my #2, the decision was easy, I was going to stop focusing on the waiting and really begin to notice her. I noticed how she hugged my arm with her chubby hand and noticed her perfect almond-shaped, almost black eyes.  After about 45 minutes, I noticed the time and decided to get her up and have her join me in my chores. 

About the others, I still have to decide how I will wait.  It's not that I stop waiting. I hate hearing married people tell single people, "When you stop waiting for him (or her), that's when they'll show up."  That's crap. No one knows if and when they'll show up. The waiting doesn't stop, even if I pretend I'm not waiting.  The longing, whatever longing, continues. Sometimes it's drowned in busy work or partying or writing - ha! - but it's still there.

But this is my life. Am I who I want to be? Well, no. I need to be careful, though, that I don't get confused and think that I'm not who I want to be because I don't have that thing I'm waiting for. Because likely, if I'm not who I want to be now, I won't be either once I get that thing.  I think the reality is that right now, in the waiting, I can move toward being who I want to be. There is so much, in this present moment, in the waiting, to cultivate, to work with, to notice.

A new friend, who is in a similar waiting season, has been teaching me a lot about cultivating in the present moment.  Just like me, she doesn't know how long she'll live here, whether her husband's job will be renewed.  This week, she showed me the cactus she's planting in her front flower bed and all the native plants she got for her back yard.  She registered for classes, even though she doesn't know if she'll be here long enough to finish her degree.  And after only a couple of months living here, she knows so much about the area - cool hiking spots, community events - that she seems like a long time local.  This is her life, and she's living it. She's still waiting, I think, for a stable life, to stop moving so much, to be able to focus on her career. But she's living all the while, while she waits.