Each day, as part of my job, I schedule tweets for the work account. The tweets are part of our website's "Thought For The Day" pages, which are incredibly popular. Usually one or two each day seem to apply to my life, but none so much as one from today.
Karen Casey's wonderfully written daily meditation book, "Each Day A New Beginning," features a quote from Kathleen Tierney Crilly in today's message:
To wait for someone else, or to expect someone else to make my life richer, or fuller, or more satisfying, puts me in a constant state of suspension; and I miss all those moments that pass. They never come back to be experienced again.
Those are words seem to describe the first forty years of my life. I was always waiting for that person, that someone to come along and make my life complete. I couldn't fathom a life where I was enough; where I could be comfortable with myself, just myself.
And I know that I have missed much in my life because I had those expectations.
I saw the play "Waiting for Godot" as a college production. The play itself (not my favorite) is painful to attend, let alone a college production of it. I just remember really, really wanting to get out of the theatre before I shouted out "Godot isn't coming! Get on with your lives."
Maybe the reason I was waiting was due to the messages I received growing up. I really didn't have any role models in my life that were single women. Everywhere I looked, people were coupled up and then had families. Growing up in a small town, I never had friends with divorced parents until I was out of college.
I know I missed so much in that state of suspension. I don't remember any conscious choice to walk away from an opportunity because I was waiting, but it is possible that I didn't take risks that I might have.
Today, while watching President Obama announce his nominee for Supreme Court Justice, Elena Kagen, I realized that she was single (as was his first nominee, Sonia Sotomayor). Two highly successful career women moving into the ultimate job for their vocation. Did they have single women role models? Or maybe they just figured it out long before I did.
From everything I see today, the current generation of young women have role models at all levels of success. While I wouldn't see myself as a role model, I could offer myself as a cautionary tale- "Don't wait for someone else to make yourself whole - You already are."
Image: "Waiting in Cuba" by wahoorob 80
I saw the play "Waiting for Godot" as a college production. The play itself (not my favorite) is painful to attend, let alone a college production of it. I just remember really, really wanting to get out of the theatre before I shouted out "Godot isn't coming! Get on with your lives."
Maybe the reason I was waiting was due to the messages I received growing up. I really didn't have any role models in my life that were single women. Everywhere I looked, people were coupled up and then had families. Growing up in a small town, I never had friends with divorced parents until I was out of college.
I know I missed so much in that state of suspension. I don't remember any conscious choice to walk away from an opportunity because I was waiting, but it is possible that I didn't take risks that I might have.
Today, while watching President Obama announce his nominee for Supreme Court Justice, Elena Kagen, I realized that she was single (as was his first nominee, Sonia Sotomayor). Two highly successful career women moving into the ultimate job for their vocation. Did they have single women role models? Or maybe they just figured it out long before I did.
From everything I see today, the current generation of young women have role models at all levels of success. While I wouldn't see myself as a role model, I could offer myself as a cautionary tale- "Don't wait for someone else to make yourself whole - You already are."
Image: "Waiting in Cuba" by wahoorob 80
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1 comment:
So true. I struggle with that "waiting" not so much from the perspective of waiting for someone else physically, but waiting for someone else to approve of what I am doing - as if what I am doing isn't good enough simply because I like it, or because it is good in and of itself, but that it needs someone else to validate it before I can stop worrying about it.
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