prayer to waiting. and eating my feelings.

so i feel like people feel similiar to me in a lot of ways--not sure what their path is in life, whether it is the road less traveled or the road more traveled or not even taking a road but just hacking at the trees off the beaten path and creating their own road, and ive been thinking about it a lot. how we all live little lives and have little worries and try to do the right thing and sometimes feel nervous we dont know what that is, or that somewhere there is this lifechanging thing we are supposed to be doing, and somehow we are missing out, accidentally eating little ceasars pizza and watching the outsiders on dvd when in actuality we are supposed to be obamas foreign policy advisor or writing a novel that will change the world. and then you look back on your life and gasp and think if i hadnt made this decision this wouldnt have happened or if my mom hadnt gotten sick and i had taken a year off school to go take care of her i would have never met my together, nicholas floyd cottrell, because i would have been gone from the state of utah, and sometimes you see how all these puzzle pieces fit together to form your perfect puzzle of the eiffel tower, and you get nervous that maybe the pieces wont fit so well together next time or oyure picking up the wrong pieces or youre missing one or something. or maybe only i feel like that.

so nick and i have been trying to make these decisions and things keep cropping up and different surprises show up and then we end up not sure where we are supposed to be or what exactly we should be doing. and though sometimes it makes me cry and sometimes it makes me sad and sometimes it makes me eat a lot of jelly beans, it also has taught me a beautiful concept that i had never really thought about before: waiting. waiting can be a beautiful thing, and i think it is something i am learning slowly. to look before i leap, to ponder before i go for it, to pray before i jump. to be still. to hold on. to wait until an answer comes my way, or to wait until it feels right to make a decision, or maybe just to wait. i am not saying staying in a constant state of indecision is a good thing--limbo makes me crazy. insane, actually. but sometimes it is important to wait.

i think about all of the people that have waited, patiently, quietly, and with hope and faith, or even have been forced to wait against their will--the pioneers in missouri, thinking it was the time of the second coming, the world waiting for Christ to redeem them, those who have a hard time getting pregnant, my mom as she waited for her life to end, the people on the titanic as they waited to live or die, the jewish people in the holocaust that waited in hiding until it was safe for them to come out and be seen, people who wait their whole lives to fall in love, people in world war 1 and 11 and every war there ever has been for the people they love to come home, waiting waiting waiting. sometimes the waiting ended up despair, or heartache, or the waiting never ended, or maybe there are some that are still waiting. i have reverence for these people, for their patience, for their ability to wait, especially for those forced to wait. i admire their dignity, and ability to pause.

in no way am i comparing my situation to any of these waiting situations. i am not being forced to wait. my life is not in danger. i am not waiting for my fiancee or brother to come home from war. but i do have reverence and appreciation for the people who have come before me, and waited. and i hope i can learn from their ability to wait, and be inspired and ready when it is the right time to make a decision, and remember their examples of fortitude and patience. their endless waiting, maybe never fulfilled. i hope i can learn to be still.

until then, i will be consuming vast amounts of jelly beans.