But I think you were full of shit. Life isn’t what happens while you’re busy making other plans.
Life happens while you wait.
Kids spend their entire childhoods waiting until they’re bigger. Waiting for Halloween. Christmas. Their best friend’s birthday party.
Teenagers can’t wait until Friday. The game. The dance. Sleeping in tomorrow morning. Graduation.
Young adults look forward to making money, getting out of their parent’s house, getting their own, real life started.
Pregnant moms-to-be wait for their next appointment, finding out their due date, learning what parts their little darling will come out with.
Parents with young children can’t believe it’s already time for Kindergarten. That might be the fastest wait there is, the wait from when a child is born until they go to school. That wait goes by in a flash. You just don’t realize how fast it’s going until you get to the doors of the school.
We wait for winter holidays. Spring break. Summer vacation.
Test results. News. Pay raises. Job evaluations.
We wait for events. Activities. The score.
We wait for our order, our bill, our procedures.
We wait in waiting rooms, our cars, our living rooms.
We wait by our phones, for messages, for texts, for emails, for contact.
When someone you miss says they will visit, you almost forget how to wait. You can’t remember what to do with yourself. Where to rest your hands. What to look at (out the window).
You clean up a little around the house. Take a shower. Feed the cats one too many times (cats hate waiting).
You listen for a car to pull up. Or a motorcycle. Maybe a truck.
You get annoyed at the mail carrier for interrupting your waiting by not being the person you are waiting for.
You get annoyed at John Lennon, Saint of Saints, for saying, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans,”
Because he was fucking wrong.
Life happens while you wait.
The person who came up with, “Waiting is the hardest part,” was wrong too.
Receiving bad news is worse.
Someone not coming home is worse.
Not getting a phone call, a visit, or a good fucking test result… all worse.
Sitting beside your mom’s bed, holding her hand to let her know she’s not alone as she waits for the very last time- bad.
Your mom dying- worse.
But sometimes life has other plans.
Barefoot Iowa 