Are We There Yet .... ??

Exactly 15 years ago this month, I stopped working to enter the grueling world of  full-time Mommy-hood. I was a nurse, a wound care nurse, specifically, and I loved it. Looking back, I think I gravitated to wound care early on in my nursing career because there were tangible differences to be seen in actively healing wounds. I worked primarily in nursing homes, and, let's face it, nursing home patients don't exactly "recover" from old age, hop up out of bed with a spring in their step and mosey on out the facility doors. But I knew that if I treated a wound correctly, it would actually heal and make a real difference in the patient's life. Unless you're in the medical world, you can't appreciate the fact that a bedsore can kill a person …. especially if you're 90, diabetic, have high blood pressure and your immune system isn't working optimally. So, the point is, I like forward moving progress, something I can actually measure … like the slowly closing edges of a decubitus ulcer, or …  to all you non-medical people out there, a bedsore.

The next 15 years were filled with the blur of having and raising children. But, again, measurable differences could be observed and recorded … from the trimesters of pregnancy to actual birthdays, pre-school to now entering high school, I could see the forward moving progress of my boys reaching milestones and growing up.

To say that I am now wildly out of my comfort zones and smack dab in the middle of uncharted territory is a gross understatement, for too many reasons to count. This is all new to me. Add to that uncomfortable mix that the entire month of August has been a frustrating exercise in hurry-up-and-wait …. key people are on vacation, others are traveling for business, misunderstandings abounded, and pivotal meetings had to be postponed for the damnedest of reasons …. like earthquakes. Now we have Hurricane Irene winding her way up the east coast, and are looking at the prospect of days without power. 

Where are the carefully measurable guide posts of my comfort zones? I feel like I am at the starting line of a race, crouched and leaning forward, every muscle tensed in anticipation to spring into action at the sound of the starting gun, waiting, ears straining for the slightest sound, waiting, waiting  ….  

The starting gun ….

I get up in frustration and look around. Did anyone even bring a starting gun?? Yes? Okay … where is it? Oh … I get it. It's that cosmic conductor I referred to once, orchestrating all the moving parts. Well … what's going on? Is anybody up there?

And that's when I hear a friend's voice in my head, telling me again, as he has done at least a hundred times ….. "Patience, Grasshopper." I resist the urge, as I have done at least a hundred times, to smack him, and pick my head up,  straining to listen to something ….

Ah …. I think I'm starting to get it now. Finally. The conductor. In every piece of beautiful music, there are pauses … breaks woven in to become part of the overall harmony. The music will begin again … when it's time. All along I have realized I can't force things here … they will happen when it's time. I have to trust in the process, sit back and enjoy the journey, breaks and all.

So …. I pretend it's one of those interminably long car rides with my children. I pop a DVD in the back to keep them entertained, put my ear buds in my ears, and listen to the music …. knowing that it's just a matter of time before we reach our destination.

We'll get there. We always do.