The wait…
There are many times throughout my life I have been stuck in limbo, waiting. Waiting for my baby to grow and arrive, waiting to complete on our house, the two week wait. Currently I am in the waiting period after submitting my UCAS application to study midwifery.
This is the second time I have been through this, the first time I was 17 and doing my A-Levels and applying to the University of Cambridge to study an Education degree. Back then we heard back from each application by letter, and I think the expectation was you had a few weeks to recover when you sent off your application, before hearing back about interviews or offers.
This time everything is so instant, and with social media you can see in a minute all those who have applied and received offers for interview and even already had their interviews. Offers have yet to be made, but I am sat, comparing myself to everyone, wondering if I will even get an interview. I felt confident of my application before the impatience kicked in, before I started refreshing each page, email, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.
I know I have never been good at waiting, but I feel this time is harder. I can at the moment 24/7 be critiquing myself, criticising myself, comparing myself to strangers on the internet. On the one hand I feel a part of this amazing community, I feel less alone. But at the same time I am constantly beating myself up and feeling an envy of those who have received invites to interviews.
The stages of waiting are pretty predictable. The immediate excitement of applying and sending off the application has a fever in it. I am impatient and desperate to hear back, and in this age of instant feedback, it has been a long time since I have had delayed gratification. Our phones and social media helps to feed instant gratification, and I have gotten so much worse over the years as we have gotten used to having feedback almost instantly.
The next stage is a calming of my soul as I get distracted and carried away by other projects, my family, my hobbies, household duties keep my busy and a few days will pass quicker than those first days of constant refreshing. Eventually the answer will come, baby will arrive, you will exchange, you are pregnant or not. In this instance, I will receive an invite to interview or not. Almost every time I will, by the time of answer have decided I don’t want to know the answer. Life is about to change again.
Each of these big changes I have impatiently waited for, each I have been so excited to have, and each right before finding out, I haven’t wanted to know. This time is different though. There is a difference in that I am older now, I have more experience and I know fully I want this. My whole life I wasn’t sure of what I wanted - just allowed life to happen to me. It has worked out, but this time I know what I want, and after 10 years of caring specifically for the needs of others and putting their wants first. I now know it is my time to be the priority, to pursue what I want.
Over the next few weeks or months I shall get my answer, but the process itself has left me thinking about my ability to patiently wait for something I desperately want. I hope to use it to practice calming my soul and remind myself that whether or not it is this year or next, I now finally know what I want, and I can not wait to pursue something specifically for me.
