Lady-In-Waiting

Seems like all I do is wait.

Please bear with me. I know this probably sounds arrogant, but I have been waiting for people all my life to catch up with me. Those “people” would be my family of origin and the families I created in marriage (the first AND the second time). Here I am (generously) putting on my personal brakes instead of taking flight and following my Heart’s Desire because I am (generously) waiting for everyone else to grow wings (and the balls to use them).

Yes, I know…arrogant.

On the other hand, I don’t think I am the only person on the planet who feels or has felt this way. There are probably a gaggle of women (and a slew of men) out there who agree with me. Perhaps, especially those women of a certain age who grew up as I did in the patriarchal society of the 50’s can resonate with my experience. They, too, could have personal recollections of their mothers and grandmothers routinely giving up their individual, unique identities to become partnered wives and stay-at-home mothers more out of societal expectation than personal desire.

With the women’s movement in the late 60’s, a lot of us woke up to the possibility of a different kind of life. In Fall of 1971, my junior year at Boston College, there was a mass exodus of women out of the Schools of Education and Nursing into the Schools of Business, Arts and Sciences, and Pre-Med. Why? Because we were finally (after much ado about something) allowed admittance to those historically male-only majors.

At the same time, the long-standing paradigm of going to college with the goal of finding a “good” husband was covertly active even in 1971. I don’t think I am alone in spending a lifetime trying to balance doing for others and doing for self, but personally I never wanted to fly solo, without my family, my peeps, my support. So I looked for a suitable husband (twice), and waited for them to catch up with my level of desire.

I’m still waiting, and I’m getting tired of them holding me back.

I met an old feeble-looking woman a few weeks ago. By the looks of her, she could be anywhere between an extremely aged 60 and a relatively youthful 95. At first glance, I pegged her for a victim. It was something about the way her head hung off her neck as if it weighed one hundred pounds. Something about her body language just said, “Pity me.”

The room in which we had our encounters had its own unique ambiance. It smelled as if something was rotting, making it almost impossible to take a deep breath. A small sliver of light came through an open door, but the boarded up windows encircling the room were caked with what must have been decades of congealed and hardened dust and dirt.

The other oddity in the room was the large number and assortment of chairs that were strewn about: a high chair, a toddler seat, an old fashioned classroom chair attached to a desk (with an inkwell!), and several other random assorted sitting devices including the old weathered rocking chair this ancient-looking women was perched on.

I am embarrassed to admit that I had little pity for her. “Sorry, Honey,” I thought to myself, “your decision” because who else but a self-appointed victim would stay in a place like that when there was an open doorway four steps (or less!) straight ahead?

Well, once again, apparently, that would be me.

Because as I thought those words, she raised her head to me, and I recognized my own blue eyes, but charged, electric, and alive. Her gaze grabbed me by the pupils, and refused to let me go. She has more energy, more magnetism, more purpose in those eyes than I can find in my entire body.

I’m sure you’re all way ahead of me and know this already, but I must say that even after several meditation encounters with this woman, I was shocked to learn this morning that…

She is the embodiment of my Heart’s Desire, my Soul’s Calling.

While I have spent the last almost sixty years being uber-responsible and uber-busy fixing, manipulating, and controlling other people’s lives so I can finally stop waiting for them..

She has been waiting for me.

Yes, my friends, by the looks of my high chair, my toddler seat and more, my Heart’s Desire has been (generously) waiting for me to stop using everyone else as an excuse for avoiding my life so I can finally grow my own pair of wings (and the balls to use them).

All she wants to know is this: How much longer does she have to wait?


(Thank you Elizabeth Claire)