The Waiting Room

For a number of reasons, some of which I’ve written about in previous blog posts, the past few months have felt like a holding pattern. An in between - not quite here, not quite there. One foot at home in Cape Town and one foot outside, mostly in the States. Right in the middle of a job search. Inching towards closure on some big personal developments.

I described it to a friend as being in a waiting room. I moved away from some things. Towards other things. I saw them on either side of the space. But there were loose ends, unresolved items. Possibility, but also uncertainty. And much of it was outside of my control - just like when you’re waiting to be called into the office of whomever you’re there to see.

I’ve recently moved into the doorway of the waiting room.

I wouldn’t say I’ve arrived, but things are feeling less open-ended. More settled. That’s a relief.

And yet.

Having almost crossed the bridge over what felt like an abyss, I’m now looking back and seeing (again) how hard I fight against these moments. This in between is not my favorite way of being. I’ll almost always take a bad certainty over un-certainty.

But I know I’ll be back in this space again before long. Because what, really, is life if not one long waiting room? So, isn’t the trick to find ways to accept that uncertainty - that impermanence - instead of resisting and craving resolution?

I know this, but how easy it is to forget. This destination focus, the arrival fallacy: my little goal-oriented overachieving heart falls prey to it again and again.

This is the time of the year I would usually be headed into a 10 day silent retreat. Actually - ha, I just realized as I type this that today is exactly the day I would be headed to the Buddhist centre to start vipassana (more on that in this post if you’re curious). That’s always a wonderful and necessary kick in the teeth, a sharp reminder that always, everything, everywhere is changing, and the only real antidote to this delicious catastrophe of a life is an equanimous mind.

But this year, instead of 4am wakeups and 100 hours of seated meditation, I started a new job. And I’m excited about that. It’s the result of nearly a year of reflecting and re-orienting and pursuing and honing and selecting. A pretty significant shift for me.

I also know it won’t radically change things. Work is neither the primary source of stress nor the primary source of joy in my life. I’ve known this for some time, but if this year taught me nothing, it’s that life is the hard part. Not work. And while they overlap, they are not the same thing.

To remember this, I call to mind one day this year when I was in between gigs, having an early lunch at a cute cafe full of other people who could have a leisurely meal at 11am. I had gone to an early Pilates class, and after coffee with a friend I just strolled around for hours, peeking into shops until I was hungry. And still, while in the middle of that luxurious moment of freedom and space - I wanted to skip ahead to sunset wine on the balcony. I used to think that kind of mental leapfrogging was about work, but this example reminds me there’s something else going on here. The fast forwarding isn’t only about tasks I don’t want to complete because on that day I had zero tasks now and I still felt the same. 

I think this is really good news, because it means there’s no need to wait til the evening or the weekend or the holidays or the New Year or the next big opportunity.

This is my life. And the work, at least for me, is to not rush through it to the next thing. Or languish waiting for the next thing. It’s to realize that this is the next thing.

There’s no there there. It’s now. Here.