Charming, but single

It seems like my whole life has been spent waiting – to "grow up" and become an adult, to move out of my parents' house, to get a good job, to be offered more money. Waiting to hear if you got the apartment you like. Waiting for him to call, for your coffee to be ready, for the light to turn green. To find out if Dad the Mechanic can squeeze a few more months out of your car so you can wait to buy a new one. Waiting for the Big Game and then waiting for your team to win.

Waiting for another job offer that you didn't even think you wanted until you had to wait for it. Waiting for that perfect first kiss with someone special at the end of a perfect date like you've been waiting for all of your life. For that great bag to go on sale and for Clinique Bonus Time. Waiting to take a vacation and for flip-flop season. Waiting for his hand to move down your hip. For his hug to turn into an embrace. For your heart to stop beating so hard that you think it will come through your chest.

Waiting for the storm to blow over.

Waiting for those hour-long gym sessions to pay off. Waiting for the day when you don't feel guilty eating a slice of pizza with double cheese and pineapple and washing it down with ice cream.

I am in a holding pattern of constantly waiting for the next big thing: the job that would be a career booster, the man that will be a core shaker, the perfection that is supposed to make me feel whole, as if I don't sort of feel whole now. (Waiting for the day that I don't approach the feeling of wholeness on my own without trepidation and worry that I am missing out on something. Like I shouldn't accept the flawed me as complete, even when the flawed me is more content and fulfilled than ever. Or as if I admit that I really feel okay in my own skin now, I am somehow closing myself off to new learning and new people and new rounds of the Waiting Game. Will I live to wait another day?)

This is what happens when I have to wait. I go crazy. I get in my head and psych myself out and my heart starts pounding and I question everything I am doing and have ever done. I am neurotic when I am waiting. I am neurotic me times 100.

In these moments, the only thing that seems stable about my life is the constant anticipation.