Do you ever feel like you are just… waiting??
I am in a phase of life that I can only describe as ‘waiting’. It feels like I’m stood stone cold still in the middle yet the world around me continues to move, leaving me behind. Each day Ted changes and intricately develops towards being a 6 year old – the moments swim across my face as if I’m watching a screen. I’ve started a part time retail job here in Hebden Bridge to save up to get professional photos so that I can move forwards with my animal scenes. Customers come in, I chat, I smile, on they go, I carry on. Nothing has changed except perhaps an hour of pay towards my big goal. I’ve been exercising consistently and regularly for nearly a year for the first time in my adult life but my body still looks the same. Still dimpled, undeniably wobbly around the edges, stomach still loose from its task nearly 6 years ago. Friends all get promotions, they buy bigger and more beautiful homes, they plan exciting trips abroad. Yet I’m here with my part time retail job, part time messing around with clay, no pension, no sick pay.
Even nature is moving at a pace that makes me uncomfortable – I’ve watched the trees each day – daily anxiety as more and more leaves move on from their branches and more time passes. And still I’m not moving. But somehow deep down I know I’m not meant to be – not just yet..
It’s as if I’m on pause, waiting for some end results to catch up with my intentions and actions. My mind is so ready to move forwards yet I’m being held still by forces beyond my control. And I know that there’s nothing I can do except inch my feet forwards and accept the slowness and heaviness of where I am. To allow what needs to fall into place to fall into place around me. To let Winter proceed while under the earth promise is there – biding it’s time. My body is slow – like the damp clay soil, yet in my head theres a gale blowing. My mind needs to retreat into the deep ground too. To feel cooler, still and to simply wait.
Don’t most of us have ideas at where we think we should be that are at odds at where we are? It can feel like you’ve gone wrong somehow. But you haven’t. You/I have just forgotten that we are unique individuals on our own paths and that comparing them to others is so completely meaningless. Sometimes the more you’ve strayed off the path of whats considered successful and normal means the more you’ve questioned who you really are. It’s deep reflection, it’s uncomfortable but it’s also knowing you are something richer than the demands and expectations placed upon you by forces that are yet to know that about themselves. I love a story of ‘failed’ relationships, divorce, lack of career ‘success’, not having kids etc etc – not in an incompassionate way – but because these stories slowly teach us that there are infinite ways to live a worthy life and the ‘failings’ often metamorphose into something quite spectacular.
So I will continue to feel a bit odd, to try and get comfortable with feeling uncomfortable, and I guess I’ll just simply wait.