waiting.
it’s a familiar feeling.
i feel it a lot.
i am waiting for someone else to do something before i can move on.
you need to help me.
i am small.
i am stuck.
i do not hold my life in my hands.
i have given it up to another.
they hold my life in their hands.
it’s all up to them.
so i sit here and wait.
and wait.
sometimes i feel angry or sad or depressed.
because i am seriously stuck.
waiting for someone else to do whatever that thing in front of me is.
well.
i wait no more.
i am over being stuck.
frankly. i’m too old for it.
i recognize that the powerless-waiting feeling is a signal that something is quite wrong.
something is up.
it is a warning that i am like a child inside and i need to stand up and be the adult.
now.
something needs to shift.
something needs to change.
the something…is me.
i need to change.
i have lived too long in a child stance.
(four minutes is too long, really)
a child gives up her authority.
a child waits.
a child waits for the other.
a child waits for the world to be right.
a child waits for the adult to make it right.
to give her the things she desires.
the things she needs.
she has no power within her own self to make this particular piece of her world right.
for… she is a child.
for a true child, this is how it ought to be.
we are born into the arms of adults who meet the real life needs.
they comfort us and nurture us.
they see our needs and meet them.
and as we grow, they show us how to be responsible for ourselves.
in small incremental ways.
we learn to grow in authority.
we learn to own our lives as we grow up.
we learn agency.
but there are times when we return to the place of a child.
we want someone else to own a piece of our life.
to fix it.
to make it better.
to take care of us.
we don’t feel strong enough.
taking responsibility for my own stuff changes things.
it’s not about you any more.
it’s about me.
which initially kinda sucks.
at first glance, it seems easier to make you responsible for me.
i can even blame you when things are not as I wish.
but is it really easier?
does it really create the life I want when i need you to do the making of it for me?
no.
i just end up sitting here with that waiting and stuck and small feeling.
so instead, i recognize it.
i recognize my stuck-ness. my small-ness. my waiting.
then i own it.
i make my choices.
i put the time and effort into what it will take for me to get where i want to go.
i no longer have you to blame for my not being where I dreamed of being.
a child stance was fine when i was a child.
it was necessary.
it was how things worked.
the adults in my life provided the food and shelter and structure i needed.
but there are parts of me that did not get the deeper things a child needed.
parts of me that stayed childlike while other parts grew up.
and there are parts of me that remain in that place of waiting.
waiting for others to please show up and meet my need.
just.
please.
see me and meet my need.
well. the time for waiting is done.
i am the adult.
and i have what it takes to standup and take authority over my own life.
all parts of it.
i see me.
i see the need.
i go to an other for connection.
to maybe process the hurt that remains from living in this world.
or to hear the “you got this” that feeds my soul.
then i stand up and go and do the thing. whatever it is.
many of us are successful in so many ways.
we have great businesses and jobs and families and friends.
and yet we have this sense of powerlessness in a particular area of our life.
we feel small.
we feel like we are stuck and our only option is to wait.
i’m not waiting any more
i’m not waiting for you to do this before i do that.
i’m not waiting for opportunity to knock. I knock.
i’m not waiting for a trip to be planned. I plan.
i’m not waiting for someone to invite me to go, I go.
i’m giving up the small, powerless stance
for the ability to own my own choice
and build my own life.
and now when I have that familiar feeling of waiting….
i use it as a tool to reveal that it must be time for me to go and do.
do you have that feeling of waiting?
or of feeling small?
i know that feeling, and warmly ask you what I ask myself.
what can you own?
i know we don’t get to choose everything.
life has it’s way of throwing hard things our way.
but even in those times,
even when it feels like we are completely helpless,
we own our lives by finding the choices we can make.
we choose something within the bigger messiness of life that we are able to do.
as i do this,
i know you will do the same.
and i bet we will be our best selves,
and oh the places we will go.