Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up. ~ Anne Lamott
“Please have a seat in the waiting room. The doctor will be right with you.”
I followed the receptionist’s instructions and took a seat. I waited for the next hour.
“Jill, you can come on back.”
The nurse took me to a Lilliputian room. She asked a few questions and took my blood pressure.
“Please wait, the doctor will be right with you.”
As I sat in the arctic room, I realized how much I dislike waiting.
In October of 2012, I wrote a short story and decided to submit it to a magazine. The guidelines indicated it could take up to six month to receive a response. I mailed my story and as each month passed without a rejection, my hopes were high.
At the end of the sixth month, I had become as patient as a child on Christmas morning. I decided to contact a writer who had been published numerous times in this magazine. She told me it was a good sign that I hadn’t received a rejection and I should resubmit my story. I checked the guidelines and they did say it was okay to resubmit after 6 months, so I did.
Three months after resubmitting my story, I’m still waiting. Most days, I don’t think about it. Some days I can hear the mail truck coming toward the house. I visualize my self-addressed stamped envelope with a contract inside, among the bills and junk mail.
Waiting and wondering can be nerve wracking and both are passive. I’d rather focus on what I have control over, so I’ll continue to write and submit. I’m currently working on another story for the same magazine. I’ve learned the waiting game goes with the territory and this is a territory I chose to explore.
I’m curious, what do you do while you’re playing the waiting game?