Waiting

I have a habit of saying more than I should. I'm going to try to keep this short!

From A to X: A Story in Letters by John Berger is intriguing, albeit a little different from my norm:

But I'm not writing to review the book - I'm writing because I want to reflect upon a simple sentence contained within the book. 

I just read this:

"Maybe waiting for something doesn't lessen the surprise when it comes."

These words caused me to stop and go back over them. They caused me to think about the periods in my life when I've been waiting for things - waiting for my daughter, waiting for our next baby, waiting for jobs, waiting for dreams to come true, waiting for moves, waiting.... waiting... waiting. My life has been full of waiting.  And the character A'ida captures something in those words - how surprised we are when "it" arrives.

I wonder if this is because in the waiting we are often not fully present in our here and now, but also not in our expectations. We're in a sort of limbo. A state of wondering. Even if we're "actively" waiting (i.e., working towards achieving those goals, or at least doing something!)

I was caught off guard by my new baby (though I'm told this happens to all first-time parents... and likely any time you add a new person to your family). But I was also surprised when I received my job offer as a teacher a few years ago, even though I had been preparing for it - heck, I took a whole degree and paid a lot of money for it! I was surprised when our trip to Europe happened last spring, though I had been pining for it for years. I was surprised when I received my first paid client for my new photography business, even though that is what I had spent years working towards.  All these surprises.
Yet I had been waiting for them.

Funny how that is.