I have come to the recent conclusion that most of my life revolves around the idea of waiting. It seems that way, at least. In high school I was waiting for college. In each year of college, I was waiting for the next year. Waiting until I could be an R.A. Waiting until I graduated. Waiting until I had a boyfriend. Waiting until that relationship fizzled out. Waiting until I traveled to Belize. Waiting for my road trip across the country. Waiting for graduate school. My life has, up until this point, seemed to revolve around waiting. I have great difficulty living in the here and now. Every situation I find myself in, I quickly become bored and begin looking for the next stage. I mean, I was looking at graduate schools fairly early in my college career.
And of course there is the sense that I am a Christian, and I am waiting on Christ's return. I have His grace and forgiveness for my sins (and boy, do I need it!) But I am still waiting on His promises. We all are, to a certain extent. Perhaps I'm thinking about the subject heavily because I've been going through a book called "Waiting" with my small group. Or that I've ordered (and am currently waiting for) the incomparable Wesley Hill's new book about the homosexual struggle, aptly titled "Washed And Waiting." It seems like waiting is a subject that is constantly on the mind of twenty-somethings. We're in a process of having officially "grown up" in the eyes of society, but we're still waiting on the day when we will feel that sense of adulthood and maturity.
I know I sure as heck don't feel mature all the time. Yes, I'm currently holding down a job (waiting tables, natch.) I'm pretty darn emotionally stable at the moment -- which is an accomplishment after the roller coaster year I've had -- and I'm paying bills, doing well in class and staying away from things like sex and pornography (for the most part) that tend to drag me down and start all these emotional issues in the first place. But even now, I don't feel quite like a grownup. Perhaps being at such an esteemed institution has me intimidated. My small group is full of medical students and surgery residents. My graduate classes are full of people who did their undergraduate coursework at Yale and Harvard. Just tonight I hung out with several students at a fellow student's house. They were in their early thirties. One used to be a lawyer before she decided she wanted to be a writer. She's also married to a neurosurgery resident. The other was once an editor for one of the biggest fantasy and science fiction publishing companies in the country. It's intimidating, and to be honest, I'm waiting for the day when I feel like I have my life and career as together as these people do.
And I'm also waiting for the days when my ramblings are more coherent and less spastic. But then again, this is a blog, and I don't think I owe anyone coherence and essay quality writing. And if you do want that, well, I suppose you will have to wait for it like the rest of us.
