The waiting is the hardest part

Just Thinking

By Earlene Ward

(Updated: Wednesday, April 16, 2008, 6:05 PM)

Just thinking
...about not knowing.

I can't think of anything more frustrating and worrisome than not knowing what is going on or what has happened. The uncertainty puts our lives in limbo and keeps us from being able to move forward with other things in our lives.

When I am waiting to hear about something important, I am totally focused on that. If I'm expecting a telephone call, I don't want to get away from the phone; if I'm expecting something in the mail, I can't wait to get to the post office.

When I don't hear, I become frustrated and uneasy -- I want to know, and I want to be able to move on. I would rather hear bad news than no news at all. As I was growing up, my dad had the philosophy that no news is good news. I have not been very successful in adopting that idea -- I want to hear the news, I want the uncertainty to be gone.

Maybe I lack patience, but I find it so hard to wait to find out what is going on. I know that things often take a lot of time to play out and that does require us to be patient and wait. It's just so hard for me to do.

This is something I'm working on, but I don't have a lot of confidence in my ability to overcome this to the point that I can be comfortable when something crucial is hanging in the balance, and I don't know what's happening.