Does anyone else feel like that they are in a permanent state of waiting?
I feel kind of royally stuck at the moment. Waiting. Waiting Waiting.
Waiting for things to change. Waiting for life to pick up. Waiting for things to finally be and feel different. Waiting for something to happen – and I have no idea what it even is or would need to be, even if it did magically come along.
Yes, it's partly a Covid thing, waiting, bloody waiting, for life to crawl its way back to normal. And I know I'm not the only one. Was chatting to J the other day about Joy – and the lack of it in many of our lives at the moment. Not doing things spontaneously. Stuff that you don't dare to even look forward to, for fear it will be cancelled and the rug of happiness pulled from under your feet – again – at the last possible moment. Not laughing enough, not enough silliness and piss-taking and just downright not enough messing about, not enough fun and … yes, not enough joy.
And it's rather exacerbated the never-ending feeling I have of not being in step with everyone else. Not living the same kind of life – all because of our diagnoses and the weird world we found ourselves thrust into. Me 13.5 years ago and Hawksey 3.5 years. Having to make decisions that 'normal' people don't. Wondering just how long things will be ok for. Constantly worrying that we are not making the right choices or doing the right thing with the healthy time that we currently have. Not working like everyone else does, doing our bits and pieces but not fitting in or being the same any more. Having to stand on the sideline of the hockey pitch because I don't belong on it any more feels like an analogy for life in general rather too much of the time.
I feel like I'm waiting for everyone else to 'catch me up' – to also have time on their hands. To also be up for doing some stuff. To be free to play. But of course everyone else is living their normal life, with their own stuff on their minds and god knows we'd have loved to have done much the same. It might seem an amazing luxury that we have time to spare, but what's the point of it without the people we want to spend time with, also being there?
Frustrating, to say the least especially after the last 2 years when even less was possible, and the time clock of 'at the moment you're still able to do stuff, but for how long?' was getting louder by the day. There's nothing specifically different about today and the reason I'm writing this, other than being so 'over' having to keep on.. waiting. (Maybe its the honking rain and winds outside that I am also gagging to see the back of..)
Especially when nothing is going to materially change any time soon. Most of my friends have around a decade – or more – till they hang up their working boots, and that feels like a VERY long time to me.
So – my huge gratitude to those who jiggle their weeks to offer up a 'Scotty slot'. I know it's not easy and can't tell you how much it means when you bring that much-needed Joy into my funny old, waiting, waiting, waiting world.
Raising my glass (of Berocca, sigh) to you all – and here's to a whole bunch more Joy all round x