waiting

I took this picture the other day of my son and his friends waiting for another friend before walking to school. They had plopped themselves down at the foot of the driveway and were chatting away without a care in the world. It got me thinking … 

It seems like many aspects of 2020 have been about waiting. 

We wait to see what the case counts will be for the day.

We wait to see if lockdown measures are coming back. 

We wait to see what restrictions will be lifted and when.

We wait to see if someone we know gets sick.

We wait to see if someone we know loses their job or their business.

We wait to see if our kids school will be shutdown. 

We wait to hear what the Prime Minister or Premier has to say each day.

We wait to hug our loved ones.

We wait to go to bars and concerts and live theatre.

We wait for life to go back to normal.

And, now, just to be sure we knew it was still 2020, we even wait for election results.

We wait, we wonder. When?

Before pandemic-land arrived in March waiting was somewhat of a foreign concept. We had created an on-demand world. We carried around supercomputer-iphones. We rushed from home to school to work to social events without a second thought. Our kids did every activity under the sun with parents falling over trying to keep up the pace. Evenings were filled with social activities, family events, attending live theatre and concerts. Weekends were filled with getaways and holidays were spent travelling far from home. It was a life of more, more, more until it ground to a painful stop in March. 

The health and wellness industry has been booming in the past decade with a focus on being your best self. Meditate! Do yoga! Get in shape! Eat keto! Do a juice cleanse! Buy organic! Use essential oils! So much has been written about slowing down. About living with intention. About connecting with loved ones. About living a ‘meaningful’ life. Yet, even with all the wellness we worked hard to embrace, it continued to be an act of jumping from one thing to the next. The idea of waiting and quiet and idle time is uncomfortable. 

If we are not in motion all the time we must be missing out on life, right? And yet, maybe, just maybe, this year has forced us to step off the proverbial hampster wheel. Forced us to get clear on what and who is really important. Forced us to look in the mirror at our naked selves and really see what was going on in our lives. Forced us to pause, listen and wait.

In a week, in a year, in a season of life that has been about waiting I wonder how we will look back on this time period. I don’t have a magic crystal ball, but if 2020 has taught me anything it is to slow down and listen to the whispers of what life is saying. Find a way to hug the ones you love. Be patient. Be kind. 

Sit at the end of the driveway, just like the kids in this picture, and be okay with the pause. Be okay to wait.

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