Hurry up and wait.

I've heard that phrase used often, and my brain always meets it with a bit of annoyance. Hurry up and hang on a second. Hurry up and stay put. Hurry up and remain in that one spot. Hurry up and be ready, even when there is nothing for which to be ready.

I am not exactly a patient human being, which shouldn't be a shock to anyone. I tend to bulldoze through the parts of my life that I want to go in specific directions, yanking my tired present along in the hopes of battering it forcefully enough into my desired future. I don't want to hurry up and wait. I want to hurry and go and do and don't feel pain. I want to experience everything I desire one after the other after the other. I never want to have to wait. I always want to know what is just beyond the horizon. I want to do everything I can to move forward.

I've spent a lot of time trying futilely to make things happen. Make my future happen. Because of this, I have steamrolled my own thoughts and feelings in exchange for what I thought might make progress happen. Might keep things moving. Might keep me moving forward. I have convinced myself that I do feel certain ways. That I can live without others. That I will be content in a concoction of false feelings if it means I get to what I want. Once my future is set, then it will be nothing but happiness.

And yet, there are some things I cannot force. Some things I cannot push. Some things immovable and unpredictable. Some things that have me living moment to moment by embodying the Big Brother slogan of "expect the unexpected." I want to have control over everything, all the time, even time itself. But life doesn't work like that. And, loathe as I am to try and admit it, for those things, it's better to take them as they come and not force them into existence. The timing I hate waiting on is likely the better one for me.

Here's the thing. A future that is forced into existence is not one anyone should want to live. It is cold, calculated, and hard-pressed to live up to an impossible standard of being. It will always be empty of everything it could have been. Forcing yourself into feeling feelings you don't will have you bereft of your true emotions. It will leave you so empty that even if you reach the future you desire, you'll have forgotten what it meant to be overjoyed at that fact.

I don't like waiting or leaving things up to anyone but myself. And that's too bad for me, but that's life. Waiting makes the ending worthwhile. Relying on the Lord means that I am not left to my own dumb devices. Leaving my future in hands other than my own means that I can live, not just survive in some calculated, structured nightmare, hoping to one day be free.

Timing isn't perfect. It isn't easy. It isn't what you'd expect. But timing will be everything you need it to be. Live your life and let your life move as it will. It may take some time, but in the end, you will get to where you are going.