These are the eyes I am used to seeing when I look in the mirror ... I am unfamiliar with the "look" coming out of them though. These eyes look weary to me.
I picked up the camera and snapped this picture while my husband was talking to me. I had just said, "I feel like a failure." I was just getting ready to go to the empty class room where I thought a few would be pilots would show up for ground school. I knew no body had registered, and was going up there as a courtesy to the people hosting this opportunity. My husband was saying these words to me when I snapped this picture, "How can you feel a failure when you have successfully completed your objective? Put the camera down and listen to me..." My hands like to fiddle with stuff when I say words I don't like to hear.
This morning as I picked up a book, "1984" ... around my house we're buzzing on the fact that Four refuses to actually read the books that are assigned by her Lit. teachers, I thought of something. Four doesn't like to read. She never has ... and ... and this is a big AND because it is unheard of among our other children ... AND we have been to several parent/teacher conferences over the years as wonderful teachers try to light a fire under this kid. She always has an A on her report card, but she is diligently skirting the lesson here. I tell her these books are the foundation of cultural literacy ... she tells me she doesn't care about a stupid book about talking animals ... I tell her that is a different book ... she tells me she knew that on the test day. We go round and round about this ... this is our biggest problem. Why can't she just do what the teacher asks her to do ... why does she feign disinterest and exasperate the teachers ... she tells me her lack of interest is genuine and she doesn't mean to be disrespectful. "I have a A in there ... what do y'all want ... ?" I want her to read the book. I want her to learn how to discipline herself towards the given expectations. Instead she watches the movie ... or reads the Cliff Notes or the Internet "helps" ... she asks her older siblings ... she finds a way to the A and calls it done. As are good, but beside the point here. We are all hoping she will learn something ... and find strength there.
My husband is reminding me that I said something about a couple of dreams about waiting. My husband doesn't dream (he does, we all do, but he says he doesn't because he never remembers that he has dreamed). My husband is interested in my dreams ... when he has time to be. I told him about those two waiting dreams and now he keeps on telling me to remember them ... he thinks they are significant. He thinks I maybe should be using this time ... to wait. I do not know how to wait. I don't do wait ... . Wait feels inherently wrong to me. Wait feels like quit. Instead of wait (that ugliest of four letter words) I want to find another way.
"Dammit! I want my A!"
Wait
Webster: transitive verb
1: to stay in place in expectation of : await
2: to delay serving (a meal)
intransitive verb
1a : to remain stationary in readiness or expectation
2a : to look forward expectantly
4a : to be ready and available
These definitions shed a new light on the matter of waiting. This begins to feel more like just plain old good manners. Good manners I can do. I can wait my turn.
It's true that I prefer the urban dictionary version: A sentence-enhancing phrase, used to illustrate the epicness of an object/situation/event. As in wait for it ...
Maybe that is the lesson here:
Yet those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength; They will mount up with wings like eagles, They will run and not get tired, They will walk and not become weary. ~Isaiah 40:31
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