Waiting Game
I’m waiting on a lot of things right now. You know how in Coraline, the man upstairs is made out of rats? I feel like that squirming man, except that I’m constructed out of questions.
The situation was worse a few weeks ago when the list was longer, and I was waiting to hear an answer on 50 things instead of 33 things. But still, you know, 33 things. That’s a lot of things.
I’ve been obsessively cataloguing everything I’m waiting on in my brain like it’s an accounts outstanding folder. I picture all of these questions like the last, thin paper in a triplicate carbon copy. I mentally shuffle through all the receipts I’m holding. Which people or places will pay up so I can move these papers to another folder. Account closed.
There is no difference in my brain between the questions that have a due date (“You’ll have your answer by Friday at the latest”) and the ones that linger about, noncommittal to when they’ll pay up (“Soon!”). They’re all just receipts I have to hold onto until I have an answer and can place them aside.
Until the unknowns are known, or at least at a more manageable level.
I started to write out the list, thinking that if I could take it out of my brain, I would feel better. But I don’t. Not really.
I’m not very good with the waiting game.
Side note: Tomorrow is #MicroblogMondays. Get writing.
11 comments
Yeah, I know that feeling. We are almost always waiting for something or other that never comes. I write down and try to keep track. Good for you that you can juggle like 33 things. 🙂
I’m in wait right now. Just ine thing rather than 33, but many other things hinge on that one. It’s nooo fun and I so feel for you.
one not ine
I played the waiting game a lot this year. I am not so far removed from it that I don’t still remember what it was like and I feel for you, I really do. Especially when your hands are tied and you can do nothing to help speed up the process and get answers faster.
The biggest things I waited on this year: betas/ultrasounds and early pregnancy, and the financial approval go ahead to be able to purchase a house. Both were challenging in their own way. I don’t have to expand on the pregnancy one, I am fairly certain you understand that.
But the house one…well, I spent a year and a half after we made the decision that we needed to move (due to a changing and less safe neighborhood, and very cramped space causing lots of stress because we were all on top of each other, a toxic, evil neighbor, and a increasingly shitty landlord) paying off bills and fixing our credit. So a lot of waiting month to month to slowly pay things off, but at least I was actively able to work on it, and realistic about our timeline. But. The closer we came to nearing our deadlines, the more frantic I felt about waiting. Oh the anxiety. Everything about staying where we were seemed unmanageable. Then there came a point where I had paid off everything I could, and All I could do was literally wait for our credit score to reach a certain point to qualify us for a specific type of financing that would be the only type we could do and afford to move. Then when it got there and we waited some more for all the steps of underwriting…knowing major life decisions hinged on some unknown face scrutinizing every aspect of our lives…
It all thankfully worked out. But there was a real possibility that it might not have. And then, at the end, our shitty landlord became even shittier when he found out we were moving. So then it was waiting to sign papers to make the house ours, and then waiting for Moving Day, and just waiting to get the F out of that situation for good. (We found ourselves in that situation to begin with due to job loss when the economy tanked…so I think we more than paid our dues. It just took forever to climb out of!)
So yeah…I totally get where you are. I feel your pain. and I abide with you.
Ah…yes, waiting. Be it 50 or 33 or one (on which many other things hinge) it is major suckage.
Ugh. I know the feeling! May your 33 things get answered soon.
Similar to the Waiting Game is the About to Change Game. Within 10 days our whole routine will shift, and we are all on edge about that.
What JustHeather said about your 33 things. And may no others pop up in their place.
Now I’m totally intrigued. I hope you whatever mysterious things you are waiting on are resolved the way you want them to be.
Going through a similar process. A lot of it depending on an initial decision to initiate more questions.
May you get your answers very soon.
I’m waiting on something big. I expect to hear tomorrow. I’m not hopeful. But I wish I knew now, so I could forget it. I’m not good at waiting on things, so waiting on 33 (THIRTY-THREE?) things would kill me. Even if I did write them down – which of course I would.
I, too, hate the waiting game. I’ve often thought that if I could just KNOW the future outcome, good or bad, I’d be okay. But that’s of course not the way of things. Waiting is part of life. Not my favorite part.
I hope you get clarity and answers soon.