Waiting.

I have been anxiously anticipating the move to DC.  The past two weeks my anxiety level ticked up a few notches as Charlie and I began our apartment search in earnest.

My friend, Hannah, best captured how the apartment hunt in DC makes you feel when she posted this picture on her own blog:

So over the past few days, I’ve been forced into a reflection on the worth of waiting.  That which started as thinking about waiting as it relates to finding the right apartment in an incredibly-crazed city (realty-wise, at minimum) manifested itself into something much deeper.

I realized the hardest part of the past two/three years has been in the waiting.  I’ve had to watch the brilliant mind of my ebullient, sharp and driven mother slowly deteriorate. 

And I’ve had to wait...  

...on the end of phone lines

...at the end of confusing accounts of medical appointments

...in the awkward pauses that come at the end of conversations trying to explain to others

...in the awkward pauses that come at the end of my thoughts when I ask if I’m just making things up

Waiting has been the worst part.

I am a planner; a list-maker; a strategist.  Much of this I actually inherited from my mother. 24-hour notice was king in my household growing up.  The only way mom could juggle working, taking care of a teen and toddler and all the other things life threw at her, was through marking down everything on the calendar.  She was the watermark as planner, list-maker, strategist, and balancer.

So, as I watch things fade away, I want to go – to do – to plan.  Not just in the short term, but to prepare for how the specter of whatever is behind the memory loss will impact the longer term.  I want to tackle what’s happening like I have the apartment search.  (Game plan: live on Craigslist -> email first -> be friendly-aggressive -> go prepared (I MADE A TENANT-RESUME) -> win.) 

But that’s not how sorting out, diagnosing and addressing memory loss works.

So far, what it’s meant is waiting between the spaces of doctors’ appointments, fears, forgetfulness and questions.

I’m still loitering in those spaces, but the apartment search has helped me to refocus, and to remember to lean into this:

{Oh!  Heyyyy there, waiting!}

 Let all that I am wait quietly before God,

 for my hope is in him.
 He alone is my rock and my salvation,
    my fortress where I will not be shaken.
 My victory and honor come from God alone.
    He is my refuge, a rock where no enemy can reach me.
 O my people, trust in him at all times.
    Pour out your heart to him,
    for God is our refuge.

Psalm 62:5-8 nlt