Waiting For Me

Today I was just wondering abt waiting. I was waiting for an email to come because I needed it to be able to settle some things, and unfortunately the email I was waiting for never got through. It means I waited for half an hr in vain, and it also means that I wasn’t able to finish what I wanted to do.

Its seems we spend our whole lives waiting for something to happen, doesn’t it? As kids, we keep waiting to grow up so we won’t be treated as a kid anymore. And slowly, as we transit into a grown-up, we keep waiting for the moment when we come of age, and actually start feeling like an adult. And by the time we reach that stage, (I’m told) we start waiting for the day we can retire ourselves from adult responsibilities. And when we retire ourselves from these responsibilities, we wait to die.

As a Christian, we are called to wait for Christ’s coming. In our spiritual walk, we are called to wait for God to move in His time, we are called to wait upon Him, and more often than not we seem to be waiting for all our hard work and labor-of-love to bear fruit in our ministries. We keep waiting for the other side to understand us and our situation, thus waiting just about forever to heal the divisions that exist in every church.

As a single, we wait for our soulmate to come along. When he/she comes along, we wait to be noticed. Then we wait for the reciprocation. Then we wait the appropriate interval before getting married. In the event that things don’t work out, we again repeat the cycle from scratch.

Between friends, we wait for each other to show up for our appointments, we wait for the other party to be the first to apologize, we wait to see how they treat us before we decide how much to invest in return for the friendship. We tell ourselves a true friendship needs to stand the test of time, so we wait and we wait before we call someone a good friend.

In our careers we can’t wait to start work to get out of the dreariness of studying, and we can’t wait to start earning our own money. Subsequently we start waiting for the next best job opening to become available because we question if we’re really happy with what we have. Then we wait to climb the career ladder after we’ve finally settled somewhere. Then we wait to finally retire because we’re tired of working so long. Then we realize that we still need to work after retirement, and so just end up waiting to die.

I guess perhaps that’s why we all feel like our lives are so unfulfilled. Because we’re always waiting for the next thing to happen, we’re always expecting a little more out of our lives. Some call it “looking forward”, while in a different light its called “discontent”.

I like how Colin Hay puts it, “I’m waiting for my real life to begin”. I put up the version sung by the cast of Scrubs, since even as I was writing this entry the song came naturally to mind. The episode was talking abt a patient who was about to die at any moment unless she had a heart transplant, and she was saying that even as she continues to give her all to fight for her life, part of her is very tired that she will always have to go through life being denied a full part of it by reason of her heart condition. She told her doctors that in a way she was ready to die, so that she could perhaps finally live her real life.

And on many days that’s how a heavy heart of mine feels. I’m waiting. Waiting for my real life to begin. Anyone who has waited for news of a loved one gone missing, or one who has waited before for the reciprocation of his/her feelings will understand just how painful waiting can be, and is.

Oh, you’ll have good days when you feel like life is finally moving along (and it probably is!!), but there are days when it feels like a mirage on the dusty road ahead, and that you’re still headed absolutely nowhere.

*Shrug*

Maybe its just me.

But I think I know too many out there who don’t know why life is so painful.

At least, I know.