#6 :waiting

Waiting. 

Like Tom Petty says, the waiting is the hardest part. 

When I was as big as a house, waddling around 9 months pregnant with my son, my brother sent me a playlist to listen to while waiting for my due date. The Waiting was the first song on the playlist. I felt a deep kinship with Tom Petty, as waiting for my son to exit my body was one of the most agonizing and uncomfortable times in my life. Up to this point in my life, I have never felt as impatient as I did waiting for him to show up.

So far, my cancer journey is a whole lot of waiting. 

Waiting for results. 

Waiting for phone calls. 

Waiting for appointments. 

Waiting for the “right time” to talk about it.

Waiting for health professionals to enter rooms. 

Waiting to feel like I have cancer. 

I am not a patient person.

Waiting patiently for other things to happen is not my MO. I am a go-out-there-and-get-it-done kinda girl. ‘Katie is so chill and patient’ has never been said about me.

For me, it comes down to feeling some sort of control over the things that happen in my life. I want to control how fast they get this cancer out of me. I want to control how healthy I feel. I want to control all of the unknowables.

I want to control the uncontrollable. 

Waiting makes me feel like I do not have control over my life.

Which, technically, I don’t. 

Enter stage left: Yoga.

I have been practicing waiting for over 30 years on my yoga mat.

Waiting for the next pose.

Waiting for the next breath.

Waiting for my teachers to bestow their wisdom on me.

However, I never felt impatient or irritable waiting for those things. I never even thought of it as waiting, or patience, or even being controlling. I knew on a cellular level that everything would come at the perfect time. 

Because in yoga, we practice being present.

I can’t be fully present AND have anxiety about my next appointment. I can’t be present AND worry about my next test, or the next phone call, or the next appointment. 

The only thing I can control is how I respond to each moment in the journey. I can control how present I allow myself to be. I can control my behaviors, my thought processes, and my expression of my feelings. Beyond that, well, that’s where the suffering happens.

Staying present is the antithesis of waiting. When I stay in my body, with a calm and focused mind, I know I am alright. 

My teacher, Ram Das with his teacher Maharaj-ji. His constant reminder to be here in love is my mantra. Be here now.