The Waiting Place

These last few months of graduate school are starting to remind me of a Dr. Suess poem- 

You can get so confused

that you'll start in to race

down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace

and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,

headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

The Waiting Place...

...for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go

or a bus to come, or a plane to go

or the mail to come, or the rain to go

or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow

or waiting around for a Yes or a No

or waiting for their hair to grow.

Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite

or waiting for wind to fly a kite

or waiting around for Friday night

or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake

or a pot to boil, or a Better Break

or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants

or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.

Everyone is just waiting.

I would add to that.... waiting for another chapter of the thesis to be written, or a real estate agent to be met.  Waiting for a chance to visit Iowa again, a house to be bought or a season to change or a new couch to be purchased.   Waiting for that highly anticipated degree to be earned!  

I hate the waiting place.  There is so much that is just out of my hands.  One of the hardest things about being a supportive graduate student's wife (or a soldier's wife, or an entrepreneur's wife, or any kind of supportive wife at all) is the fact that all you can do is support.  You can't make the money or earn the degree for your husband.  You can support, encourage, and push them out the door again and again, but you just can't do it for him.  At the end of the day, he is  in the drivers seat, and you are helpless only to watch from the passengers seat.  There is a lot of trust, patience and love that comes with being in a supportive role.  

There is so much life ready to be lived while we are waiting for the Next Big Thing.  And that's what I focus on while I'm waiting... and waiting... and waiting...

NO!

That's not for you!

Somehow you'll escape

all that waiting and staying.

You'll find the bright places

where Boom Bands are playing.

There has never been any question that graduate school was the right path for our family.  We've been very happy and very blessed in graduate school.  But the next chapter is on the horizon!  We're so close, and the waiting place is a horrible place to be- no time left to make new friends (someone actually said to me the other day, after I suggested that we get to know each other better, "Aren't you moving soon?").  No time to join the PTA, no time to rearrange my furniture or swap out our outdated family pictures for our fancy new ones.  Because we're so close.  We're just waiting.  The Next Big Thing is right around the corner.  I just don't want to miss out on the next four months of living because I was stuck in the waiting place.  Now how to make that happen... 

P.S. Just in case you think we don't know that Iowa is the 3rd least cool state in the United States (trumped only by Kansas and Nebraska), we know.  Oh, do we know.  More often than not, when we tell people we are moving to Iowa, we hear crickets.... and get frozen smiles that remind me of that scene from The Singles Ward when the missionary declares, "I'm going to Boise, Idaho!"  Why can't they grow corn somewhere awesome, like NYC or Seattle, California or Virginia?  Oh well... we're going to Ankeny, Iowa!