You've probably seen plenty of articles on 'life in the waiting,' no matter what stage, age, or lifestyle you currently inhabit. Whether you're a Kindergartener who can't wait to be a 'big kid' or waiting for the letter confirming that you made it into the school of your choice or hoping to meet 'the one' or are stuck on an appropriately named adoption waitlist, the truth is we are all 'waitlisted' for most of, if not our entire lives. We all have something we wait with anticipation (and a little dread) for, knowing that when it arrives life will begin or be full or happy or whatever at last. When all our dreams come true, then life will be what it is meant to be...for about a day or a week or a month but then we find ourselves waiting once more. After Prince Charming waltzes into our life, then we wait for the engagement ring and then the wedding and then the baby...notice a trend here? But like silly children who just demolished an entire room filled with lavish presents, we look around and wonder what to open next. We are never content with what we have, rather we long for the next big thing, and think that this time, somehow, that longing, that yearning, that restlessness will finally go away or be satisfied, but it never is.
We all have that thing we long for: a relationship, a child, a spouse, a nice house or awesome car, the dream job, retirement, grandkids...and there's nothing wrong with longing, with dreaming, with working hard to achieve our goals, it's what makes us human, we're designed to do just that. But where we get in big trouble is in thinking when those goals are achieved, only then will life have arrived, only to look back and realize we spent our whole lives waiting for life to arrive. Instead of waiting to live until the waiting is over, we need to learn to live in the waiting, enjoy life as it is no matter if IT ever arrives. We must live in constant hope and contentment rather than in the shadow of despair and discontent otherwise we fail to live.
We finalize our second adoption in a week, the day after my 38th birthday, we began the paperwork for our first adoption just before my 30th birthday. We've spent eight years trying to build our family, and much of that was spent waiting, and certainly not in patient hope but rather in anxious what-ifs and impatient whens, jumping every time the phone rang only to be disappointed when it wasn't the agency calling or moping around for weeks on end convinced it would never happen. Before that it was 8 years of college and grad school and 7 years of indentured servitude to pay it off, always working working working for that day when all debt would be paid off and we'd be 'free.' Before that it was working my tail off just to survive a broken family and brutal school life so I could have a future to look forward to. And here I am, nearly 40, and wondering where my life went! All those things are good and wonderful and worthwhile, it is not that, but perhaps if I had spent less time being anxious and worried about the future and rather just spent more time enjoying the NOW, I wouldn't look back and wonder how all those years passed me so swiftly by, especially when each day felt like an age as we languished on 'the list.'
So what is the take home message? We are built to yearn, to hope, to long, to dream, it is the very essence of our humanity, it is not wrong or bad to do so, it is who and what we are. Rather it is how we go about it that is the important thing, yes, make goals and plans, have dreams and dearest hopes, but don't make them the very stuff of life, look around and embrace what you have, who you are, what you can do NOW, rather than looking to the future and waiting for life to arrive, cause life is here, now, and you can't have this moment back again. This isn't the 'fear of missing out,' rather it is living intentionally and gracefully in the moment, rather than waiting, waiting, waiting, for the perfect moment to arrive, because the only moment we'll ever have, that truly matters is right now.
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