The Art Of Waiting

Finally...after a month and a half of failed downloads, Rob Thomas's Lonely No More is completed and currently blaring out of my laptop, car and Shmooshy. Patience is truly a virtue. Hearing Rob Thomas's voice made my failed attempts fade away. Victory, getting what you want is absolutely sweet and fulfilling, especially if you've toiled and worked hard for it. And waited for just the right time, the right place, the right opportunity for it to happen.

I remember the homily back in my baccalaureate mass rendered by one of my alma mater's very formidable, institutional and (dare I say) colorful personalities, Fr. Dacanay. He said that the image he wanted my batch to remember was a rocking chair - which connotes waiting, relaxing. There is value in waiting, he said; it was a time for us to ponder, to think, to sort out something that should be righted first before we can move on. The season of waiting brings out a lot of possibilities - lessons to be learned, people to meet, hardships to endure - all of which are supposed to hone us and (this sounds so cliché) make us a better person. It is one of life's ways of telling us Hey, slow down, you might miss this lesson, this person. My generation today moves so fast, we want to do A LOT of things before settling down (ick) that most of the time we wanted the "fast food" version of the lesson, no time dilly-dallying because there's so much to do!!! La-di-da! We count on weekends, retreats and sabbaticals to pause, take a deep breath, and try to process everything that happened so far. Which, in my case, yeah, I mostly remember the lesson, and then...yun lang. I am guilty of getting very impatient if I don't get the lesson right away. Therein lies the problem. I miss the essence of the lesson, the virtues and the values that come into play. At ang pagmemeron. Usually, when I get to this phase, I either call up Law, Jae or Jayvee and temporarily treat my Globe line as a landline, which of course jacks up my handphone bills to unbelievable amounts. It's a small price to pay for trying to keep my sanity, and I find it distressing that the last time I did that was about a year and a half ago.

There is value in waiting. I have A LOT of catching up to do. Seriously.