Waiting

I am waiting.

Waiting to creep out from under my parent’s words that rain over me like hail. For the finger prints of their holding to be released and the bruising to heal.Waiting for the cocoon to open, for the wings to emerge, for the wind that dries them and for the hope that strengthens their veins.

I am waiting for the boy I have met to become the man I will marry.

Waiting for the years we will travel. The years when no place is home. The times when the only place that is home is the blueness of his eyes and our hands entwined.

I am waiting for the day we decided the two of us should become three. Waiting to be blessed. Waiting to be told I cannot. I should not. What sort of a mother would I make? Waiting to tell those doctors they were wrong. I can. We did. I will be.

I am waiting to hold him. Little fingers wrapping around mine. A glimpse of his father and touch of me. The breath of my future when I am long gone.

I am waiting to take him home. To wrap him close beside me on the plane as we travel the millions of oceans back to Australia. Waiting for his daddy to join us. Waiting to go back to the place where the two of us started, and the three of us will make a life.

I am waiting for his first words, first steps, all his firsts and my firsts, and together, our firsts. As a mother, as a family and as us.

I am waiting for the music that plays when he’s asleep and we have just each other to hold again. Waiting for the father’s day when I tell him we are expecting another. Waiting for the Christmas morning when we find out that our baby will be a little brother.

Waiting for the night we almost don’t make it to the hospital, and all the days after that I struggle with two boys and no sense of me.

I am waiting for the year I do not cope. Waiting for the unraveling. For the year I finally curl around myself and say enough, I need help.

I am waiting to find her. That voice like surging water that speaks into places others have not. For the ears that finally hear what I have been screaming my whole life. Waiting to peel back the times and memories.

I am waiting for the woman inside me to emerge, and for the man who lays beside me to stand.

I am waiting for the day we lay in bed, quietly tangled in each other’s arms, long after the storms of that previous year and look back and say, “Not everyone has this, do they? What we have… not everyone has this.”

I am waiting for that feeling of flight that comes when you finally see those wings hanging on the end of you bed. Waiting for the morning I get up and know how to put them on. Waiting to be me.

I am waiting for the day I look at my sons and can say with pride in myself, “I am their mother.”

I am waiting for the moment I realize we have had our last baby and our family is complete.

I am waiting for the words I write to be birthed into this world. For the things I feel to have meaning for someone other than me.

I am waiting to see my family holding my writing. I am waiting for the day my little ones can read it. Can understand for themselves. Can see how long the fight was, how trying the anticipation, and how determinedly I said, “I am waiting.”

What about you? What does waiting look like in your life? What are you waiting for? And why do you bother?