In Waiting
A scattered thought on silence, delay, and the self that emerges in between.
“What we are waiting for is not as important as what happens to us while we are waiting. Trust the process.” — Mandy Hale
What is waiting, really?
Because I used to think it was just a gap. Something you pass through on your way to something else.
But why does it never feel that simple when you’re actually in it?
Why does it feel like you’ve been placed somewhere you didn’t plan for, and now you’re expected to stay there without clear instructions?
Why does it feel like everything around you is moving, but you’re not sure if you are?
And if I’m being honest, why does it bother me as much as it does?
Is it because I thought things would happen faster?
Or because I assumed that if I did the right things, life would respond in a way I could recognize?
Because waiting has a way of exposing that, it shows you what you really believe about control, it shows you how quickly your peace starts to shake when nothing is confirming you, it shows you how uncomfortable you are with not knowing.
And I don’t like admitting that.
I don’t like how quickly I start questioning things when there’s no visible movement, how easily I measure progress by what I can see. How restless I become when there’s nothing to hold on to.
Why is it so hard to sit still without feeling like something is wrong?
Why do I assume delay means something is off?
Why do I feel the need to interpret every silence?
Waiting does something to you. You don’t notice it immediately, but over time, it starts to pull things to the surface.
Your impatience.
Your expectations.
The fear that maybe things won’t happen the way you hoped.
And once you see those things, you can’t really go back to not seeing them.
So what do you do with that version of yourself?
The one that isn’t as steady as you thought?
The one that needs answers more than it wants to admit?
The one that doesn’t know how to sit in uncertainty without trying to fix it?
Do you ignore it? Or do you stay long enough to understand it?
Because that might be the hardest part.
Not the waiting itself, but staying present in it. Bruh, staying sane in it.
Not rushing past it mentally.
Not distracting yourself out of it.
Not pretending it doesn’t affect you.
Just…staying.
Even when it’s uncomfortable. Even when it stretches longer than you think it should.
And I think that’s where something begins to change.
Not around you, at least not immediately.
In you.
You don’t notice it at first, you just realise, slowly, that certain things don’t shake you the same way.
That your urgency starts to soften, that you’re not chasing in the same way, and it’s not because you’ve given up, but because something in you has adjusted.
And that’s strange.
Because nothing about the situation may have changed yet.
But you have.
So when I read that line now, I don’t hear it as something light, it feels much heavier than that.
Like a quiet truth you only understand after you’ve sat in waiting longer than you expected to.
That something is happening to you, whether you like it or not.
Not everything you hoped for is in your hands, but who you are becoming in the middle of it…is not nothing.
And maybe that’s the part I’m still learning to accept.
That the waiting is not just holding things back.
It’s holding me still long enough to see what is actually in me.