Waiting Room Lamentation.
Waiting rooms.
That’s where I was this afternoon.
The hum of the air conditioner – a voice behind me through a wall answered the phone, calling out to check if a patient’s son was current with a tetanus shot.
By the time we got there, later in the day – chairs were empty.
The phone trilled on, folks scheduling appointments for the next day.
Appointments for people to come and fill up the chairs to wait once again.
I have rushed in this very room with a child bearing split skin over her chin on one occasion and split skin on the knee another.
Once carrying a child with a charred thumb after sticking a paper clip into a light socket.
Today was just calm waiting.
Sometimes we are made to wait. Other times we nail ourselves to the chair refusing to walk through the door when our name is called and a curled finger beckons.
We could spend most of our mortal existence in rooms — waiting.
Comfortable in a holding-pattern at 30,000 feet expecting that sooner or later someone or something will impact our lives for the better. (Or we’ll finally land in Bora Bora and not Dubuque.)
I’m done with that.
Done waiting for opportunity to throw open the door, running up to me with a full pant-on. Good fortune gushing all over my t-shirt on how deserving I am.
Nope.
No more waiting rooms for me.
Well, except this one…because it really is a waiting room and not a metaphor for a woman treading water in a mid-life cliché.
How about you?
Are you big on waiting?
