There Is Nothing to Wait For
Here is something I've been thinking about lately: how often I convince myself that happiness and contentment are just around the bend, but also--importantly--not here yet.
I find myself acting like I'm waiting for something--motivated by the roving hunger for certainty.
Some days, I can identify what it is...
...My writing will be so much better once I have my MFA.
...Once we know what Michael's next job is going to be, then we can settle down and start building our lives in a specific place.
...When we've celebrated a few more anniversaries, then I'll know what it means to be married and love someone for the long haul.
...I'll be so much better at coordinating Connections for my church after the pandemic is over and everything doesn't have to be virtual.
The promises of waiting seem to be everywhere these days: "Once I get the vaccine," "Once we get the next stimulus check," "Once my Amazon delivery shows up," "Once I finish this book," "Once Wednesday gets here and I can visit my friend at the coffee shop for my favorite drink..."
"Once all my neighbors stop leaf blowing I can finally get a moment of tranquility!" (I think this one a lot.)
Other days, I can't even identify what I'm waiting for. The suspended posture of anticipation has become so natural to me that I adopt it without reason. The end of things becomes the point towards which I aim, whether it's the end of the day or the book or the finale of whatever show we're watching on Netflix.
Have you ever noticed that it's a moving bar, anyway? I think I'm waiting for the end of the workday, and then when it comes I'm waiting for the weekend. Then I'm waiting for Memorial Day when we can go to the river, or for late summer when we can maybe travel out-of-state again, or I'm waiting for the day when I'm published and therefore a Real Writer, or the day when...the list won't ever end.
But as I notice myself doing this, I've started to remind myself: there is nothing to wait for.
My life won't necessarily significantly improve after any of these checkboxes. It won't become any more sensory or immediate or gratifying because of any of these things.
Really, the thing that will make my life more sensory and immediate and gratifying is the attention that I pay to it and the joy that I find. The attention's the thing.
That nagging voice in my head whispers, 'I can't really live until all the answers I'm waiting on come back to me'--but it's while I'm waiting on things to get back to me that my life is going by. This is my real life, day by day, minute by minute. It's happening while I scroll instagram, while I click through online sales for jumpsuits, while I procrastinate on the work that grounds and satisfies me.
My life won't be any more immediate or significant or legible after I reach whatever moving point I think I'm waiting for.
There is nothing to wait for.
Knowing this, can I turn back to my life with joy and levity, since it no longer bears the burden of making me beautiful or famous or successful? Can I find joy and satisfaction and meaning in the present passing moments?
Your life doesn't have to be instagrammable to be beautiful. It doesn't have to be beautiful to be filled with meaning and joy. Your home doesn't have to be clean or uncluttered to be home. Stop waiting. It's the benediction my friend Lissy gave me years ago to keep me from dropping out of school to join the circus: No part of your life is necessarily any more important than any other part.
You don't become a real person when you go off to college, or get the degree, or get married, or have kids. Or buy that perfect natural wood bookshelf, or master the art of muddling the perfect cocktail, or reach 1,000 instagram followers. Milestones are just markers. The journey is the thing.
So I'll listen to a moment of sounds recorded in a forest. I'll watch the wax waterfall down my candles.
And I'll get on with my life, right now, unspooling out at my feet, in all its unglamorous glory.
