Retrospective

Ten years ago on March 18th 2007, I published the following blogpost which I titled "Waiting". I was of course much younger then. Our son and daughter were still living at home. The term "Brexit" did not exist. I was still slaving away as Head of English in a secondary school - like a hamster on a treadmill. Hull City fans were still only dreaming of Premier League status - never thinking it would happen. My mother was still alive and so was Shirley's.

Times change. Things move on.

I rather like the punchline of this post. The idea that what truly matters in life is activity - the doing, not the waiting. I seem to do a lot of waiting these days. Perhaps we can't avoid it. Perhaps a life that was all doing and no waiting would lack contemplation or comprehension. Anyway, I hadn't looked at this post for ten years until this morning. Time to share...

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Waiting
Sunday afternoon – waiting for Shirley to come home from her trip out to Lincolnshire to see her mother on Mothering Sunday. Saturday night – waiting for the lottery results to tell me I’m free, waiting for a pint of ale at The St Patrick’s Night Party. What party? And why did Guinness boast that they’d produced three million green badges specially - along with one million of those dumb felt Guinness hats. Would St Patrick have admired such pointless waste of Mother Earth’s resources.? If put side by side in a line - those badges would reach from our house seventy five miles – right out into the North Sea.

Waiting for the years to pass. Counting the years on your mortgage, the years to retirement. Waiting for the weeks to pass – till the next holiday, the next birthday, the next anniversary. Waiting.

At the football waiting for the bus to come, waiting for the players to come out and at half time , waiting for them to return and waiting for the goal that sometimes never comes. Waiting for a season when we shine. Waiting.

Lying in bed listening to the wind, thoughts swirling in your head as you wait for sleep to come. And at work waiting for the clock to tick on to lunchtime or to the end of the day. Waiting for Easter. Waiting for Christmas. Waiting for a parking place. And we have sayings – Guinness again – “Good things come to those who wait”, “Wait a minute”, “Wait a little bit longer”, “Waiting for Godot”. And we have waiters and waitresses, people who wait on us.

But the best of life is when we are not waiting but doing. Living the moment, happy in the here and now, not wishing our lives away and waiting for something else, something beyond this moment. I’m a waiter and that’s my tip of the day.