Infinite Ink

Waiting, positively and negatively

Does it ever seem like you've been waiting forever for a breakthrough in your life? You've waited and waited, and it seems like you're almost there, but not quite. Every time you think you've got it, it slips through your fingers and reappears further off in the distance. I have been living this way since the past six years. Always waiting for the finish line, but never actually feeling the sweet, quiet triumph of walking serenely through the ribbon demarcating the end of the marathon. I thought at first that it was a race that I was running, but it wasn't a quick sprint, it was a long slog. I remind myself to be patient and all that, but the heart wonders, and sometimes my wonderings aren't all the polite and refined variety. There are a lot of wonderings that are rude and mean. Basically, I'm frustrated. I'm beginning to wonder whether there even is a finish line to cross at the end of this long solitary walk through the halls of waiting. Always waiting.

That was my impatient opinion on waiting. Usually I am good at waiting if I can think up some sort of framework for my thoughts. Sometimes I set up a circus of thoughts, other times I set up a theatre performance of my thoughts. I like to daydream and pass the time that way. I like to pray in my own words as well as recite Quranic prayers in Arabic. Sometimes I don't pray with words, but I just look around and think thoughts directed at Allah. I find it surprising how easy it is to get stuck on worrying and stressing and how simple it is to reroute my thoughts onto the more pleasant track of positive thinking and prayer. Every time I worry myself into a mess of jumbled up thoughts, it is because I forget that there is a better use for my brainpower. And boy, do I forget! All day, every day! The good thing is that thinking good thoughts makes up for the time I waste in worrying about things that will never be fixed by just worrying. If my life's issues could be solved by worrying, I would have solved them twice over by now. Fact of the matter is, worrying is just cooped up mental energy going nowhere. How many times am I going to swing between two worries and spend the day stressing out needlessly? Many more times than I can count, that's for sure. I can't cure myself and make myself stop worrying, but I can stop myself and do something better every time I remember to do that. It is difficult to be patient with my own self, but I try to do that. After all, to be human is to forget, but it is also human to try to remember.