The Waiting Place

Sometimes you just have to wait...

As life zooms by we find ourselves waiting and waiting and waiting. Long lines, being put on hold, waiting for an elevator or to get your hair cut. Waiting to turn sixteen, then eighteen, then twenty one. No matter what we do we are always going to have to wait.

Doctor Seuss describes it best in the book Oh the Places You'll Go, if you haven't read this ageless children's book buy a copy. Then memorize it. This book gives the reader such a neat way of looking at life's journey. Here is a excerpt of this piece of writing that discusses waiting:



You can get so confused that you’ll start in to race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

The Waiting Place…for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting.



We've all been there, the lobby of our life, the dead time. The time when we wait. We wait for answers, a break, we just wait. And sometimes after those periods we realize that what we were waiting for, might not have been as important as the waiting.

I experienced one of those periods that was all to horrifying at the time but also proved to be a period of time that shaped my life in more ways that one. A time when I was able to renew old relationships and settle old scores. A time that seemed to have been set aside just for me, to wait. So I waited, and while I waited I got to spend a year of my life with my Granny that turned out to be the last year of her life. I brushed up on my Canasta skills as we played game after game and learned a lot about her life and plenty more about my own. During this time I learned not to get in any hurry, to try to take my time and enjoy life moment by moment and not day by day. Waiting for me wasn't fun all the time, but it was valuable. Waiting helped.

If you break life down into sections, you might find some of your own waiting times. It might occur to you that you spent some time in that lobby of life too. Was it all that terrible? If you are ever there again make sure you enjoy the scenery...you never know, you might be waiting for a reason.