when the waiting never ends

a product of late-night anxiety ramblings; you know the drill

artwork from Pinterest

I’m not good at waiting. I never have been. I think my mind works too quickly, jumping between thoughts with an swiftness that winds up useless when confronted with something as simple and immovable as time. Waiting in line at the grocery store. Waiting for a car to arrive. Waiting for my food to finish heating up in the microwave. Waiting for blood test results. Waiting for a text back. Waiting for everything and waiting for nothing and waiting forever and ever and ever. And the greatest part of all of this is that once you’re finished waiting for that thing, you’ve just got another thing you’re meant to be waiting for. It never seems to end, does it?

I watch the seconds tick by on my phone screen, the blue bubble that means he’s typing appearing and disappearing. For me, I’ve realized that waiting has become its own kind of meditation. Albeit unwanted and resistant, but still, waiting. I sent off my papers yesterday — the ones that are supposed to decide everything, apparently. My future, my career, all that. After I clicked submit, I stared at the confirmation email for ages, just sitting at my desk. Well, what am I supposed to do now? Go on living, I guess. Wait for the next thing. It’s all I can do right now, anyway. It’s out of my hands.

It’s strange how it works, because when it’s your life-altering paper, it consumes your every waking thought. But when it’s someone else’s, you offer some vague encouragement and promptly forget about it. “Hope it goes well,” you say, already thinking about what to have for dinner. My friend, knowing what time it was due, sent me a text asking how it went. I replied, “Fine, I think. I’m just waiting now,” which somehow felt both dramatic and also not descriptive enough at the same time.

Last week, I watched this video where someone was going on about The Grinch — how all that drama happens on a tiny speck, a flower that Horton protects in that one Dr. Seuss story. It kind of stuck with me more than it should have. Made me think about that famous photo of a pale blue dot where Earth is just this barely-visible pixel in the vastness of space. People are suffering actual tragedies right now while I refresh my email. And even those tragedies are happening on what amounts to a speck of dust floating around in what is just one of billions of galaxies that are real and actually exist at this very moment.

I check my phone again. No message. I check my email for those lab results, and again, nothing. I exit that tab and head over to check my grades — nothing there, either. I end up just putting my phone back down on the table, screen-side up, and wait exactly forty-seven seconds before checking it again. Nothing, on all fronts. The problem isn’t really the waiting. It’s the reality that waiting never stops. When one wait ends, another begins immediately. He finally texts back, but now I’m waiting to see him. The food arrives, but now I’m waiting for tomorrow. The test results come back fine, but now I’m waiting to feel normal again. I guess the waiting never ends because we never exactly arrive. We’re always in transit to somewhere else. And there’s something beautiful about that, I think. The fact that we can just keep striving for the next thing; that there’s always something to keep going on living for. It’s a silver lining, if you will.

Do you think people get better at waiting as they get older? No. I think they just get used to it. You’re being dramatic again, my mom would say if I verbalized any of this. And she’d be right, of course. But knowing something is true doesn’t make it feel any less important when it’s happening to you.

afterword

[things I love these days + what I’ve been up to]

• I went to Locked In City and everyone knew me. This past week has largely been spent hunched over my laptop at ungodly hours, working on Aforementioned Important Papers. I’m really anxious about it if you couldn’t tell!

• I have been loving a good walk and getting my little steps in! For the past month that I’ve been away from you, I’ve also been trying to eat better and be more active. My current hyperfixation healthy snack is tuna, avocado, cucumbers, and tomatoes wrapped up in seaweed. I literally cannot stop making it. It’s becoming a problem. If you know any easy + yummy recipes please let me know, because I have honestly been loving this active lifestyle and mindful eating journey — it’s been really healing my relationship with food and body image generally, which has been sort of life-changing.

• After searching for forever, I finally landed a big girl job as a teacher! If you’ve been here for a while, you know this has been a long-winded search. Everyone is so kind there and I’m so grateful for the opportunity.

• I released a new song a week and a half ago called ‘same guy new apartment’ !!! I really love this song because I worked on it with my friends and also because it’s literally everything I’ve ever wanted my music to sound like. I love angry girl pop rock music! The world is healing! If you’ve given it a listen already, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart <3 We even got featured on an editorial playlist by Spotify! Things are happening!

• Been trying to not wear concealer or foundation and it’s honestly been so much better for my skin — my makeup routine has never quite felt complete without those two things, but I’ve been trying to train my skin to feel normal as is!

• This essay by my sweet friend

  sarah cucchiara
  <3

• Also this piece by another sweet friend of mine

  Valerie
  !!!

• More than my usual amount, I’ve also been kind of really into yearning lately. Had a weird, unprompted, incredibly vivid dream about one of my ex-situationships the other night and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Kind of scared for what this means and somehow even more afraid of it not meaning anything. Might have to write an essay about it actually. We’ll see.

me writing this essay randomly in the middle of the night

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