While Waiting

A fair amount of our time is spent in waiting. Over the past decades I have waited in hospital waiting rooms while the man in my life endured various surgeries. Waiting for the doctor's exhausted news, waiting for a good outcome, waiting with anxious anticipation for his return to health.

I have waited for many pregnancies to come to fruition. Only the first wait was one with real anxiety, the rest were just what they were, a long wait. And then the wait until each one was out of diapers, could tie their shoes, for school to start or end. Children each come with a lifetime of waiting.

Today I await the return of He Who Must Be Obeyed. Either his cell phone does not work or it hasn't occurred to him that I might be waiting with a little bit of anxiety. Traveling this region in winter can hold the surprise of icy or blizzard blinded highways.

I wait for the end of a seemingly unending financial burden. I pray we are relieved from it. Some say be careful what you pray for and I have experienced a prayer answered in a way that the first situation was actually easier to live with than the resolution. Of course there is the old saw, "God helps people who help themselves." So I act with impunity and pray (again) that I have done the wise thing.

During a wait yesterday, a somewhat disheveled woman asked me point blank "Are you having a Happy New Year?" It took me aback. I don't know why I found it so completely startling. Everyone else sat in a silent and properly buttoned down wait. "It is only the 5th," I told her. "Well," she said, "I have won $27!" How lucky.