The Waiting Room

Sometimes life changes before we've had time to change the plan.

An illness. A mechanical problem. Weather. Money. A relationship. A phone call. Something happens, and suddenly the direction we thought we were heading isn't available anymore.

We find ourselves somewhere in between.

I call it The Waiting Room.

The Waiting Room isn't necessarily a physical place. It's that space between what happened and knowing what comes next. Sometimes we're there for an afternoon. Sometimes much longer.

And we're rarely very good at simply sitting there.

We start pulling boxes off the shelf.

What if this happens?
What if that doesn't happen?
What should I have done?
What are they going to do?
How do I get everything back to the way I planned it?

Then the Plate Spinner arrives.

One plate becomes tomorrow. Another becomes next month. Another holds a conversation that hasn't happened. Before long, we're managing an entire collection of possibilities while the one thing actually happening is sitting quietly in front of us.

We're here.

What Is True Right Now?

I've been returning to that question lately.

Not What might be true next week?

Not What did I expect to be true?

Not even What do I want to be true?

What is true right now?

That question doesn't magically solve anything. Sometimes what is true right now is uncomfortable. Sometimes we don't know what comes next.

But uncertainty and helplessness aren't the same thing.

Once we stop trying to solve every possible future, we may begin to see the choices available in the present.

Prepared Doesn't Always Mean Ready

We tend to think of preparedness as having things.

Food. Water. Equipment. Money. A backup plan.

Those things matter. But there's another kind of preparedness that doesn't fit neatly into a storage bin.

It's the ability to recognize when the original plan no longer fits the circumstances.

Sometimes being prepared means having enough food to stay put when you're sick.

Sometimes it means knowing where you could get medical care while traveling.

Sometimes it means deciding the weather has won today.

Sometimes it means saying, I am not in any condition to make this decision right now.

And sometimes preparedness is simply having enough options that you don't have to force Plan A after Plan A has clearly left the building.

The Plan Can Change

There is a strange amount of relief in allowing a plan to change.

That doesn't mean giving up. It doesn't mean pretending we're happy about what happened. We can be disappointed, angry, frightened, exhausted or all four before breakfast.

It simply means we stop requiring reality to cooperate with the plan before we decide what to do next.

That's when I return to four words:

Observe • Pause • Discern • Choose

Observe what is actually happening.

Pause long enough to separate what is true from everything the Plate Spinner has added.

Discern what deserves your attention now.

Then choose.

Maybe the choice gets us moving again.

Maybe it doesn't.

Sometimes the wisest choice is to remain in the Waiting Room a little longer.

But there's a difference between waiting and spending the entire time spinning plates.

And perhaps that's the point.

We don't always get to choose when we enter the Waiting Room.

But every now and then, we look around and realize there is a door we hadn't noticed before.