As I wait for the time when I can see my partner again (a month or so... And then another month before I can move in with him) I have gone through many different stages... Mainly unpleasant, frustrating and conflictive ones.
I have always taken pride in the fact that I don't shy away from a challenge - in fact, I like complicated situations that push me to do more than I usually do - I am a hopeless workaholic and I always try to do the best that I can... But when it comes to 'waiting'... Ah, that's my weak spot.
I always thought that waiting was a passive state in which you were helpless, completely at the mercy of the universe without the possibility to actually do anything. I would feel frustrated and anxious, clenching my jaw constantly without realizing it, feeling all my muscles tense and my mind racing, obsessing with all the possible outcomes. No matter what I was doing and despite the fact that I work from dusk till dawn (and later), my hyperactive mind didn't seem to know how to stop.
Today I realized something. Waiting is not a passive thing. Waiting for something is fostering, or rather protecting the hope you harbor for something. Beyond what you do to achieve your goal, sometimes it's more important to keep that hope safe, like a little light inside you. Despair is a very powerful feeling when you let it in, and it will quickly tarnish your hope turning into premature grief. That is what makes waiting hard, the constant thought that your wish won't come true, that all your work will go to waste.
How about making sure it won't?
Even if, in the end, things don't turn out the way you wanted them to, it doesn't mean that you can just sit and watch your hope be swallowed by those dark feelings (frustration, fear, despair). There is something you can do while you wait. Something of utmost importance and that requires action. Keep that hope alive. It's not easy. It takes a lot of work. But it's worth it. And it can be done.
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