In The Waiting Room

It can sometimes require much less than absolute deep thought to arrive at a juncture that can astound, amaze and plain old make you sit back on your butt with how astonishingly simplistic it really is - yes, life is chock-full of metaphors and analogies - we use them daily to assist us in describing life's events and foibles to people who surround us, to our friends and often most profoundly and effectively of all, to ourselves.
Life is a cyclical affair, so very far from being all nice and linear, even for those of us who might pretend that we have very few downs amongst a great many up's......chance would be a fine thing there. Things can and do come along.......things happen to us, and we happen to things, and quite often, we don't have the first idea as to what they may mean, what message they are bringing to us, if any.........what we are being shown & are meant to learn from them, and so-on. New chapters can and do emerge......don't go getting all comfy, now, not unless it's very very comfy......be surprised or be prepared to be.....life sure can be a Minestrone.
Such as has been the way of things recently, and with my own best descriptions woefully inadequate to even begin to illustrate the real point, I now find myself 'in-limbo'.
As if that wasn't enough, my friend finds herself placed similarly...........being 'in-limbo'.....well, how does one describe the agonizing lack of belonging to anywhere or anything that we can feel - like a pair of shoes that don't quite fit, the wrong pair of jeans, a hairstyle that simply will not behave........the levels of discomfort, as described very badly here, do no justice at all to simply feeling 'wrong' without the ability or know-how to shake things off at all......and it goes-on giving for quite some time in it's special way.
As I have come to understand things, and as it seems right now to directly relate to me, along with my gal-pal - being 'in limbo' is not a remotely desirable place to find oneself.
It would take a very strange person to enjoy this particular nowhere-land, where comfort of any kind or form is not even at a premium, but seemingly entirely absent - it's this that makes it 'special', and to be avoided at all costs like the plague, not that we actually have the luxury of that particular option. Many do try to fast-forward and skip it - and, in their own imaginations at least, see themselves as having avoided the terrors of the limbo, but at times to their future detriment, in not fully dealing with certain issues and/or not waiting for sufficient time to pass to adequately mend and deal with what has been and what will follow.....until the 'signal' is received to emerge all shiny and new again for the next chapter, the next loop of their lives to commence.
Yes, it's much too real to be in any way purely speculative, folks.
So as today slowly unfolded here in Paradise, we wandered down through the park, to where the coconut palms meet the ocean - this was another first for me, and yet one more instance of having been here for quite some time now & not knowing of it's existence.
Not for the last time, now I know it's there, let me tell you - you'll find me there with a book or several, should anyone wonder where I am when I'm not drinking coffee.
My wonderful friend, always with the insight of a thousand visionaries, related this most unpleasant yet necessary domain to me again today........being 'in-limbo'.....one that, ironically, we now both find ourselves in, courtesy of life circumstance and events quite different to one another. We discussed its familiar and largely unpleasant nature for a while, just as we had done the day before. It hardly matters what had led-up to our own individual limbo states......we each were between aspects within our separate lives, in neither the place we had left behind or the places we were heading toward. It might have been left at that, plus or minus a little extra analysis from each of us........something we do often, via the mutual support it seems to offer us and the feelings of semi-satisfaction it can bring in that we somehow understand it all - man, sometimes, we actually do.
So here's the thing.
I'm more than happy to call it analogy of the year, perhaps even the decade, that my amazing friend......that she should have the insight to see & denote this enforced time we spend in-limbo as being 'In The Waiting Room'.
Suddenly, and without warning, what was an inner space so unnaturally filled to capacity with discomfort became so much warmer......became at least comfortable enough as the necessary place to be that it is. The Waiting Room.......It's imagery was made complete with one another being there in the room, amongst just a few other people doing what was required of them, with just the right amount and selection of magazines to read while we waited - and whilst neither of us were 'next', it was clear enough to us that we didn't have to worry that we would be there in the waiting room for too long at all.
I am not at all sure that I could better the Waiting Room...............I am not even going to try, since it feels so right, explains so perfectly and succinctly what we are going through.
I have lost count of the sheer number of times my beautiful friend has steered my spirit, my mind and my thoughts along absolutely perfect channels..........this intelligent enough man would be left floundering in the dark, lost and alone, time and again.........I have no words that could adequately express the gratitude I feel for her guidance, and that it comes so freely regardless of her own adversities and life issues is so very humbling.
So in The Waiting Room, for just a little while longer, is where we'll be.
To re-program and re-wire our spirit cannot be achieved overnight, nor should it be rushed or hurried. If we come to this incredibly simple conclusion that we must remain in life's Waiting Room until we are 'called' is perhaps one of the most profound sources of comfort we can take in our darker hours - it gives purpose and meaning to a previously abstract series of pains, aches and feelings of non-specific 'unwellness' and non-belonging awkwardness - I now have the strength to remain here in the waiting room, to wait a while, as long as it takes, to chat with my friend and read a few magazines.
Our turn will come, quite separately I suspect.......it won't be next, but then we're having such a great chat about all kinds of amazing things, and I am reading a very interesting article that I want to finish and discuss a little........there are some wonderful recipes in these magazines - all-new ways of creating familiar favourites, ways I had never considered. - no, I think I have a little more time here yet.