I’m in the waiting, the in between
This is still the present,
But it’s not the kind of moment you want to present to others
Or even to yourself.
It’s not something you celebrate,
Or strive for.
It’s just where you are.
You celebrate the end of college,
The start of a marriage,
Leaving or beginning a career,
But do you celebrate day 23 after your divorce?
Or when you’re unemployed?
While you wait to become…someone?
But it’s in the becoming that we find who we are.
I think.
Once you’ve made it somewhere
People throw you high fives and good vibes
Presents, casseroles and money,
Which really doesn’t make sense
As we need the money most when we’re not making cents.
I’m trying to be patient
Trying not to demand,
I just want to appreciate where I am,
Even if it’s not where I’m meant to be.
Whatever that means.
It’s all a trick of the brain.
I suppose we’re always right where we’re supposed to reside,
If we decide,
The world is on our side.
I want to have a party for not having yet arrived
I want to dance to a song titled I’m still figuring out, but I’m getting by.
Dancing makes me feel free
It makes me feel like time is not a thing,
And maybe I’m not even me, I’m just being.
I want to accept where I am now,
Acknowledge, allow,
Give it room to breath and be,
Provide a stage for this current me.
The more I try to rush this, to silence it
Pretend this isn’t happening
The more difficult it will be.
The longer it will take,
It seems.
I’m in the waiting room,
My name hasn’t been called,
I watch each person receive their summoning to what’s next,
But my name isn’t even on the list.
But maybe that’s okay
Maybe my self isn’t ready for what lies that way.
Be patient, be patient.
We can’t always be arriving or departing.
You have to stand in the grocery line
With those ingredients before you can eat the risotto.
It takes time for a seed to become a tree.
It takes space for things to grow.
Some cicadas live underground for 17 years
Before they become the winged things that buzz, click and whirr in our ears.
Magicicada septendecim, the name of the cicada
Who exists in the waiting room for 17 circles around the sun.
I think they receive their name because they are the magical ones.
I want to have a party for not having a baby
For not taking the job
For not marrying that guy
For not knowing what to do next
But giving myself time.
The in between is still a place.
Like a hotel, a hostel, a gas station on the highway.
It’s not where you used to live or where you’ll stay forever.
The pictures on the wall are a little bit weathered.
There’s graffiti and scribbling in the bathroom where others existed.
They’ve been in this place too, and this is their past presence
Here to let you know you’re not alone.
She’s been here. He’s seen what it’s like. They get it. Me too. Me too.
The pillow doesn’t quite nestle your head the way the one in your bed
But when you make it back home, if you do,
You relish the old pillow and that mattress with the coffee stain in the corner
From that Sunday you didn’t feel like lifting your head,
These things you used to complain about
Are now the most welcoming, worn friends.
The cliché saying reigns true
Until it’s gone, you don’t appreciate what you have,
Your freedom to move, to eat, to sing and just be
Without pain, without defeat,
Your loved ones, or the lost one.
Tell them.
Our bodies constantly renew
Always in the becoming,
Always right on queue.
There’s never one moment where we’ve made it
To the creation we think we were fated.
Your skin cells cycle and die every two to four weeks,
White blood cells after seven days,
Your stomach can fully renew every 48 hours,
Always unique,
But the cycle keeps going, we’re devoured, we devour
Ourselves.
There is no beginning or ending
Until your loved ones are bending to lay flowers on your grave.
Morbid, you say?
That’s life, and death, so you better live for the day.
Even if you’re in between this thing and that dream,
Why rush through the twilight
When all we have is this finite time?
-Mary-Margaret Weatherford