When All You Can Do Is Wait It Out

My daughter had some kind of flu bug or cold last week. She missed three days in a row of school and by day four she still had this residual low grade fever. I don't freak out about stuff, until someone tips me in the exact right direction to do so. This was Friday afternoon into Sunday morning, the freak out.

You Google things and all of the sudden you diagnose with cancer, shingles, pneumonia, bronchitis and so on and so forth. It gets ridiculous. You start telling all the moms you know and then they start telling you about classmate A having the flu for 2 weeks, classmate B getting some unknown viral infection and so on and so forth. I turned to my rational moms, the ones that know me, and know our family circumstances well enough. With a little extra laziness, essential oils, and Lysol-wiping down my entire home, by Sunday she woke up super normal.

It was one of those "All you can do is wait it out," moments. Of course with that, comes the waves of realization of how many times we're tested in the "wait it out" arena. We wait out test results, arguments, money to be allocated here, there and everywhere properly. We wait on text message responses, scheduling questions, doctor's appointments, dentists, plans to emerge, phone calls and so on and so forth. We have to wait it out often, but we never get used to it, and rarely are we calm.

When you get to that moment of just having to wait, there is usually unrest. Think of the hospitals with waiting rooms, waiting areas and the airports where you sit and wait to board. These places are uncomfortable, usually cold for me, filled with grouchy people, all because we are made to wait. Was it not the late, great Tom Petty who sang, "Waiting is the hardest part?" 

Mostly it's just not an easy or simple thing. Years ago when my daughter had surgery I told the doctor, "Overshoot the time frame. If you know it will be done in 2 hours, tell me 3 because at 120 minutes I'm banging down that door to make sure she is okay." I had friends specifically come to distract me for that time because otherwise I would just sit there staring at the clock.

I think I've quoted and regurgitated that whole "Patience is a virtue" thing since my dad embedded it within me at such a young age. Of course I said over and over, "Yes it is a virtue I do not possess myself." The waiting stuff is difficult, I don't care who you are.

This weekend I really had to remind myself of this over and over and over, that, all we could do was wait out the fever, wait for her to feel better, wait for her body to push out whatever was ailing her. That then transcended to, I have to wait for my body to respond to supplements, workout routines and getting consistent rest. I had to wait for friends and family in my life to reciprocate my reaching out, I couldn't "nag them" into it or make them respond according to my timeline.

Waiting things out is uncomfortable and unpleasant. You have no control. It was just like the recent hurricane, we just had to wait and see. Then that pushes us into the whole "we'll see" avenue of this walk of life. We just have to see how things go, how things turn out, and what all happens.

Unknowns are murky but a huge part of life. Not having control plays into the whole waiting it out conundrum as well. Mostly what the fever situation brought up within me, outside of the waiting stuff, was to be more trustworthy of my own gut instinct.

The maternal instinct stuff is incredibly real, as is following your gut. We have a neighbor across the street and they instantly thrust their daughter into friendship with ours and then into our care. Everything I know about the situation of their household, raises red flags for me. I've heard the little girl be not nice to my daughter, she's a picky eater, rude in general, and I've seen some things with the parents, step parents and grandparents that concern me a lot. So much tension and one kid in the mix. I stopped planning play dates because I just didn't want to get into all their personal lives and the kid was being mean to mine so for me, done deal.

This has been strange to explain to my daughter. My husband said that the girl across the street seemingly grew up and was nicer. What I explained to him was, in my gut I thought it better to not have much to do with them. What we know of the circumstances are unpleasant, and it's not my job to host that girl and make her a better person. It's my job to raise my daughter. My gut says no thank you and let's just wait and see how that family sorts out their stuff, eh?

We get used to instant gratification. We get used to getting things bigger, faster, stronger, better. Alas there just isn't much else to do when all you can do is wait it out. We have an upcoming road trip next week and I think what I worry about most is my daughter constantly complaining in the car, asking how long until we are there and her general inability to wait. As her mom, I get it, but it's definitely what I'm fearing most.

We get impatient and get sick of waiting so we act rashly. We act impulsively and text someone we shouldn't, hang out with people we shouldn't or get involved in things we shouldn't be all as some half baked distraction from the wait. What a cycle. All I know is if the fever broke, I'm hopeful to break the rest with waiting too. While it's just one day at a time, and keeping patience a virtue, I guess we really will see how it all turns out, each step of the way!