Oh! The Waiting!

Right now, I am waiting on bread to bake.  Of all the waiting I have done recently, this might be the most pleasant.  I am wearing my pajama pants, drinking a cup of coffee, and the smell of baking bread permeates the kitchen.  This kind of waiting is pleasant; the kind I have been doing a lot of lately is anything but.

Busy teenagers who can’t drive require a lot of parental driving back and forth. Traffic in Austin is ridiculous at best and since we don’t live close to the school we all attend, sitting and waiting has become my competitive sport.  For example, yesterday on a day off of school, the girl had basketball practice from 3:30 – 5:30. She then wanted to eat dinner with friends at a restaurant near the school at 7. I weighed out the options of driving back and forth, back and forth and decided it was best to stay up near the school.  I met friends and got a manicure, then went to Starbucks and picked up coffee for the week and then sat in the school parking lot for thirty minutes, waiting.  We drove home, (she had to shower) I then took her to her Friendsgiving and this time, I went to Target to wait.  After that $45 minutes of walking around, I was still too early to pick her up.  The parking lot was too dark to sit in and wait, so I waited in the foyer of the restaurant.  Waiting.  Waiting. Waiting.  Waiting and thinking that I should have handed her a bottle of perfume earlier and wished her luck instead of taking her home to shower.

A friend recently posted that her life now revolves around the nap time of her one-year-old and I sighed nostalgically when I read that.  Ahhh, nap time.  Nap time and sweet-footed pajamas and small humans who think you rule the world.  Sigh.  Her post and my response to it makes me think that when I am old and the kids are out of the house, I might even miss these waiting-in-cars years.  I love my kids and I am glad they are involved in things and have friends, but this waiting is going to break me either financially or mentally.

Hallway waiting: much better for people watching.

The problem is that I am so very bad at waiting.  I can’t do anything but wait.  I can’t read, listen to a podcast, knit, well, I can’t knit ever; I just sit.  And wait.  And play mental games with myself that I always lose but can’t stop playing.  Like, if I get here five minutes early, maybe they will get out on time.  Or just a minute late.  Or is that girls’ basketball streaming out? No, boys’ and maybe I should wear my glasses all the time now.  Should I listen to Spotify or NPR? Neither, I should shut the car off and not waste gas.  But now I am cold.  Should I get out and walk around or stay in the car?  I am convinced I am getting arthritis in one hip from being bent into my driver’s seat so often.  I also like to play the “if they get out in the next five minutes, we can beat traffic game.”  Again, that is always a loss.  We never beat traffic.  Sometimes, I like to list all the things I still need to do when we do get home.  This makes the car even smaller, the wait even longer, and my nerves frazzled which is a great way to greet the children when they get in the car.  The need to peel away before their car door is even closed is very, very real.

I look around and see a lot of other parents in cars, waiting, and I start to wonder what they are doing to not be on the edge of losing their minds.  They seem to just be sitting there too, simply staring into space, staring into their phones, staring. If the squeal of tires is any indication, they are probably staring and itemizing the things they need to do when they get home too.  I wonder if it would be better if we all got out of our cars and stood awkwardly around and made small-talk while we wait? Stranger small-talk vs. endless waiting insanity.  I’ll probably never know the answer to that because I am not about to start knocking on people’s windows saying “Hi, I am Rebecca and I am tired of waiting.”  Pretty sure Texas is a right-to-carry state and I can’t see knocking on someone’s windows in the dark going well for me.

I guess that I will continue to sit, and to wait, and to teeter on the mental edge of stability and realize that like nap time, this phase will also pass.  Sweaty teens with stinky shoes gone just like the squishy toddlers with sticky hands.  In the meantime, if you need me, I’ll be in the parking lot at school waiting, staring into space, and mentally compartmentalizing all of my life’s good and bad decisions before finally peeling away.