Have you ever had that feeling like you were waiting for something that you know isn’t ever going to come? Yet you still wait?
When I was a kid I was so excited that my grandparents were coming to visit that I rode my bike to the end of my street and decided I would wait for them. I waited for hours. Literally. I would periodically ride home to see if they had somehow sneaked by me and I missed them. My mom would say “they will be here, why don’t you do something else until they get here?” Well, I was doing something else...I was waiting for them. It was like I felt that if I did anything else, it would somehow interrupt their arrival. It was somehow my job to hold space for them. Without my holding of space, they would not arrive.
I know this is slightly crazy and also arrogant. But it is how I felt. Really. And still do a lot of the time. Waiting for me has always felt like my part of the deal with others. My job is to wait, create space for them, I never realized until very recently that I am giving up precious time of my life. I mean, they will either come or they won’t. My waiting for them really does nothing but rob me of opportunities to do something else with myself.
Even knowing this, I still wait for people a good amount of time. It is like I have this belief that I am somehow empowered by the universe, that waiting is my superpower and without the waiting on my part, you all out there will somehow have your ability to arrive or move forward truncated.
Nuts, I know. Yet you are still reading...
This makes me think that there is something here for all of us. I am not the only one that waits with the anticipation that my waiting will bring about a specific result. My waiting will, in fact, help you in some way and in turn, help me be better prepared for what you will bring into my life.
Looking back, I waited all day for my grandparents because of my grandma. She was the best. She adored me and always brought me gifts: candy, trinkets. But really more than anything else, I was waiting for that feeling of being adored. That feeling that I was so important. And it would appear that I have waited for others to bring that feeling to me a lot.
Turns out that I have always had the power and it wasn’t my willingness to wait. It was my ability to give myself the feeling of being adored, if only by myself. I just got it wrong. I thought that this feeling of being cherished had to come from others. I didn’t realize it was something you could give yourself. Well, I guess I have realized that waiting really is a superpower because I have been waiting for this for a really long time. And I just this past month woke up to the fact that this feeling of loving yourself, being cherished and adored can be something that you give yourself. Who knew?
Seems like I have been waiting for others to give this to me for years. And while it is an easy conclusion that I have wasted a great deal of time again, I think no. I think that the time I have spent waiting was the learning curve that I needed to see this pervasive truth that I have always known, it just took a fucking long time to make it from my head to my heart. That truth is that there is no one else on this earth that will love you like you are destined to love yourself. And every minute you spend waiting for someone else to give you anything is time that you are missing in the best and most rewarding love affair of your life...the one you can have with who and what you are...warts and all. And perhaps we could all wait for others a little less and spend more time, right now, loving this tangled mess of a human that we are right here, right now. Perhaps the wait is over. Perhaps, I move forward from here holding space for myself.
