I'm a squished spring, ready to blow. I'm coiled inside. Nothing is fast enough. Nothing can keep my attention. I'm cranky. I'm a little mean. I'm flitting from one thing to the next. I'm too anxious to sit still long, so the things I want to do are impossible. I'm sick of noise, so I don't want to be near anyone. I'm talking like Chewbacca. I'm a little less hairy than Chewbacca, thank goodness.
Why am I this beast? I'm waiting. I'm ugly when I'm waiting. I'm no good at it. I don't like it. In the immortal words of Freddy Mercury, "I want it all and I want it now."
I make the waiting harder. Almost always. I'm waiting to hear back about my grad school application. It's been a week. How long do they need? Well, I know that this past week or this current week is the culmination of the huge summer project that I hope to be doing next summer. Perhaps they are busy enough without reading an application. The reason the application was submitted at such a lousy time was that I put off finishing it until summer when the people I needed recommendations from would be otherwise occupied. Had I finished before the end of school, I would surely know by now. I would know and be able to plan my fall schedule. I would be able to get the ball rolling, as it were.
I'm waiting to hear whether I have a job next year. I probably do, but it's not definite. I can't seem to be half full about this. Perhaps I can't be half full because so many school employees lost their jobs at the end of last year. Why would I have a guarantee when they have more seniority? So I'm waiting. This waiting isn't my fault, but that doesn't make it any easier.
I'm waiting to see what happens this week. My daughter starts marching band. I loved marching band. I still talk to friends I made through marching band. We went great places, we had great fun. We were silly on school buses. We worked hard but had fun after school. We always had something to do on a Friday night that had little to do (really) with football. For 5 long years, I've been telling my kid that she will love marching band too. It's been very dramatic at times, since she says she despises clarinet. So soon we find out if I was right to push. On the other hand, it won't really be soon to find out that she likes it. The first half time show isn't until mid-September. This kid is a performer, so that will be a factor. So right now I'm waiting to see how much whining I'll have to listen to until then. I'm waiting to see how much money I'm going to have to fork over to listen to that whining. I'm waiting to see what the new band director is like. I'm waiting to see if she'll be friends with the kids in her group.
I'm waiting for an end to a different kind of drama. An end that apparently will never come. So I guess I'm really waiting to I figure out that I'm just going to have to get over it. With every day, it becomes less important to me- which is good because I'm sure it's been completely unimportant to the other people for a long time. Unfortunately, things always creep in to temporarily make it more important for a little while and I have to start all over. This is why I'm considering installing a 2 x 4 in the basement for those moments when I need an attitude adjustment (read "smack upside the head").
Then there's the motherhood waiting. How is this school year going to go? Are they going to be happy with teachers/classes/friends? And the long-term waiting. Is Rebecca ever going to talk slower than the speed of light? Is Katie ever going to learn to use an inside voice? True story: a few summers ago Katie went to a pottery camp- the first of many camps where she has irritated the heck out of the teachers. Imagine. An enclosed space filled with many children, one of whom goes to 11 nonstop. I'm sure they all went home with headaches. We saw the camp instructor outside at a downtown event. We all spoke to him, including Katie. He said that was the quietest he'd ever heard her be. We laughed and said she was using her "outside voice". In fact, for a while we told her to use her outside voice when we wanted a little less volume.
I have a new hobby that was supposed to entertain me while I'm waiting. It's not helping. I'm too frazzled to work on it right now, but yet I still need to obsessively check on it to see what's happening. Nothing is happening. And when I did work on it, then I have to wait to see what other people thought about it. I'm doing this for fun, right? Why do I care what anyone else thought about it? Why do I turn entertainment into something that I have to wait for? Why can't it just be a nice little surprise?
I'm reading a book. I can't wait for it to be over. I usually love this author. I've read and enjoyed many of her books. My Sister's Keeper, Nineteen Minutes, Change of Heart, House Rules were all thought-provoking, interesting, moving stories- books I wanted to talk about. I'm having trouble being moved by Sing You Home. Well, I was moved at first. In the first 10 pages, I was on the verge of tears twice. I think I waited until page 27 before the tears finally spilled. But by page 97, I was done with tears. They were running a buy one/get one deal on melodramatic plot twists and Jodi got a bulk discount. Everything that you can imagine has happened to these characters. I'm immune now. I'm going to finish it now, if I can make myself. I need to lend the book to a friend who I'm seeing later today. I'm going to wait to read another one of her stories. And, yes, I want to talk about this book with someone else who has read it. If only to find out if I'm right or if I'm just Chewbacca.
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