It’s hard to wait for anything, whether it is a light to change green or life circumstances to change. I’m probably the world’s least patient person. When I was in high school, I couldn’t wait to go to college where I wouldn’t have to take so many math classes. I don’t know if I really cared what my major was as long as it didn’t involve math. College came and college went in what now feels like a blink of an eye. It didn’t feel like a blink of an eye while I was working full time and going to school full time. I would split my days where I would have a 7 a.m. class, then go to work for about 6-7 hours, and go back to college for a 6pm class. It felt like those days moved at a snails pace.
Then I couldn’t wait to get married. I felt like I was in a race with my peers to get married and start my grown up life. If I didn’t hurry up and get that moving, I would surely lose that race. I planned the wedding for what seemed like an eternity. Then when the day came, I couldn’t wait for it to end because I’d smiled so much that my jaws hurt and I had on the world’s hardest shoes.
The next thing was to get a great job since I was, after all, college educated. I somehow foolishly thought that getting a college degree secured my dream job regardless of the true marketable skills I possessed. (Which, to be honest, at the time were very few.) The dream job didn’t come immediately. Actually, it took about thirteen years for it to come along. Thirteen long years. But in the meantime, the babies came and I couldn’t wait until they were potty trained. I couldn’t wait until they started school. I couldn’t wait until they graduated high school. The things I ached for “hurrying up” came and went, and I was left waiting — waiting for my oldest to call me and tell me how his first college classes were going. Waiting for the youngest to tell me he loved me first without me saying it.
The funny thing with being in the waiting is that it can feel so long and the outcome we hope for seems so fulfilling. But when it comes to pass, sometimes I feel empty. Like perhaps I’ve been waiting for something that just really isn’t important. And, sometimes, in the waiting, I get angry. I don’t understand why things are taking so long to work out the way that I want them to work out. I know that after periods of waiting, when the nights seemed to never end, I can see the purpose in the waiting. I can see the purpose in the pain. I know that it’s being knitted together in a quilt of my purpose because it always has been.
There is supposed to be growth in the waiting. But that growth sometimes needs some Miracle Grow to get moving. I have to be a part of the growth, an active participant. A seed can’t sit to the side of the soil and say to the dirt, “this one’s on you.” The seed has to be planted and everything grows according to the plan, if and only if, the soil is tended. Where’s the water? Where’s the fertilizer? That’s where the tears come in. Through the pain, the tears water the soil we’re planted in. Frankly, it feels like crap. Oh, and speaking of crap, we have to go through some stuff that is just pure crap. While you’re going through the tears and the crap, it doesn’t feel too good. In fact, it feels like someone may have planted you in a cactus graveyard where tiny needles are pricking your skin at every move.
But because of, not in spite of, because of the tears and the crap, the seed sprouts. And with regular bouts of water and fertilizer (i.e., tears and more crap), it grows and grows. One tiny seed grows into a plant and with the help of the sun (i.e., God), the plant grows even bigger and one day it blooms. The waiting is over and the beauty of what had once been suffering can be seen. Isn’t that the irony? The beauty can only be seen after the suffering? Sometimes its so that the beauty can be brighter at the end. And sometimes its so that we can appreciate the beauty at the end.
My Nannie always warned me not to pray for patience. She said you want to be like Solomon and pray for wisdom. The temptation to pray for patience weighs heavily on my soul in times when I feel like the waiting will never end. I want to fast forward to the good part. I want to know the meaning to all of the tears and the crap. Now. Not in six weeks, six months, or six years. But most of all, I want to know that the waiting is not in vain. There is going to be a good part, right?
That’s where wisdom has to kick in. Wisdom, from experience, and faith, from hope, tell me that the waiting is not in vain. Wisdom also tells me that I can’t control the timeline of the waiting but I can control what I do with my time in the waiting. I can pace the floors or I can build. Brick by brick, I build. Tear by tear, I stand, even if on shaky legs that dare me to move. I wait. And I grow while in the knowledge that there will be a day when I will bloom.
Messpot Diaries 