As some of you know, my best friend is about four days past her due date. We tried making her spicy curry one night and then I tried setting her up with an impressive massage therapist at one of the yoga studios who knows the appropriate pressure points to help encourage the body to labor. Despite our best efforts, this boy seems to have an agenda of his own.
I'm thinking of other times during which we feel we must wait for something. What that process is like... waiting. You probably can hear your dad complaining about lines at the theme park or your mom tapping her foot at the customer service desk at the department store. I know I hear students chewing on their nails as they wait for testing to begin or shallow breaths from a series of teenage boys enduring the half hour of previews before the next Star Wars or Indiana Jones or James Bond movie finally begins. I see worried relatives pretending like they're not anxiously listening for the phone to ring to deliver the news of a cancer patient or someone's surgery.
For some people, this process is agony... I'm sure depending on what it is we're waiting for, we all have a handful of wide-eyed suspension and another handful of indifferent daydreaming experiences. I guess I'm seeing the value in learning how to deal with this process. Is there not something good to be learned from it? Does it not protect us in some ways from how certain news may make us feel?
I don't suppose there's any good method when waiting for truly bad news. I could say we all have a chance to brace ourselves for the inevitable, but nothing takes away from the sting of knowing something harmful or sad has entered your world. Of course, I'm still thinking of Mister John... it's not like I didn't have warning that a sort of countdown was happening, but nothing could get me "used to the idea" that he'd ever really be gone. If you have some words of wisdom on the matter, do share, because this is the one time when waiting is pure hell to me and I can't help anyone, not even myself, make sense of how to survive it.
On the other hand, there's the obvious fun in waiting for good things. Some might think there's another kind of agony in waiting for a party or the holidays or a vacation... what is it, after all, that we all say? "I just can't wait til..." Doesn't that sound familiar? I know I've said it about movies, books, special events, etc... Obviously, we use it for unpleasant things, too, like "I just can't wait til those damn neighbors move out." I find that petty annoyances and forward-looking thoughts about birthdays are mostly the easiest things to wait out. They don't take away from you being content or excited... you can still have a good day before the party and you can still have a nice time reading before your loud neighbors get home from dinner.
There are plenty of other "waits" somewhere in between devastating and unobtrusive. I'm considering the wait for test scores... like the bar exam or even other college tests. There's usually some period of time during which one must wait to hear how it all turned out. I think this is just as healthy as it is unavoidable (that's a lot of tests to grade and it's only fair that everyone find out at the same time). It gives the test-taker some time to distance one's self from the severe amount of exertion he or she just spewed on a Scantron sheet. That way, no matter how you did, you've had some time to think over some of your responses... in my experience, I usually knew approximately how I performed on an exam before I received the actual score. I find the less flattering scores easier to bare when I've had the time to mull the matter over in my mind and recharge my batteries.
There's the kind of waiting that forces you to get creative... like wanting to go to the beach during an unusual two-week long stint of rain. Sure, you could just sit by the window and cry, or you could think of something else to do. My folks and I had marvelous fun after Hurricane Isabelle. The power was out, so, no one could watch TV or play video games the way they normally would, so, we entertained ourselves in other ways. We played board games, we talked, I read some stories aloud, and, best of all, Mom taped our hands, sticky part facing out, so we could "vacuum" up from the floor our gorgeous, long-haired black dog's fur.
My current favorite among waiting moments is between yoga poses. When one practices, there's a period of time when you're simply waiting to be released from a pose. So, as you wait, you deepen, you breathe, you go even deeper into yourself and the possibilities for meditation. It is during this portion of the routine that you actually get better, that you improve the most in your strength, flexibility, and sense of peace.
That reminds me of how we were taught to chant "Om"... there's this three-part breathing method connected to mental imagery. The best part is what happens between breaths. The Indian chanters focus on that state of "breathlessness" between an exhale and the following inhalation. It's a brief wait, but it's acknowledged as precious and representative of our need to stop, slow down, not work for a moment...
...and the relief once it's all over with... that makes it, (here's another phrase we use), "well worth the wait."
So, the process is up to us. We can go the Grey's Anatomy way and beat ourselves with a hammer until we finally choose to stop (that is relieving after all, but how brutal!). Otherwise, we can find ways to find peace, to get some perspective, to cushion our fall for when the waiting is finally done.
Anya has elected to have an impressive attitude about the wait for her second child. While the first day after the due date was disappointing (those stupid birth books get you ready so far in advance that it's easy to see the due date as a countdown rather than an approximation), she has perked up a bit. She's tired, but she's also content to spend this special time she has left with her son until he is ready to come into the world. And that's going to be such a happy relief.
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