It is not so fun, to get a letter in the mail that tells you that you need to be available for a phone interview on a specific day in a two hour time frame, or else.
Which is why I am sitting here at 1:00 pm on a Friday. Not that there is much else I could be doing now. It is actually a fairly convenient time to be waiting for a call that could occur anytime in the next two hours. I’m in between massage appointments. Still, though. The letter carries the hint of a threat. Also, it is not written very well; there is a sentence fragment on the back side that I find a little annoying.
So that is right now.
I am writing. I am waiting.
I keep checking my phone to make sure that I didn’t somehow miss it ringing. Even though it is sitting right here next to me. No, it is not on silent. Yes, the ringer is turned up high. I went to the bathroom a few minutes ago, but my bladder is a little anxious, maybe because it realizes that I might be stuck sitting here for the next few hours and can’t leave to go to the bathroom again (because if the phone rang while I was in there? Awkward!).
There’s been a lot of “adulting” to do this week. I finished the taxes on Monday (nothing like waiting until the last minute). I bought printer ink (expensive and boring), because I needed to print the taxes for our records. Plus there were all the other normal, daily parts of adult life: driving the boy to school, picking him up, remembering that we are almost out of milk and waiting in a strangely long line to buy more, cleaning the fat cat’s litter box, making new juice for the hummingbirds, fertilizing the plants with an incredibly rank smelling fish-based fertilizer.
I think, though, that sitting here, waiting for this phone call, is by far the most burdensome adult thing I’ve had to do this week.
(Yes, my phone has plenty of battery. I just checked it. Again. To assuage my fear that I somehow missed the call.)
Half an hour into the specified time frame. Another ninety minutes to go.
What to do now?
How about an attitude adjustment? That is usually a good thing.
Yes, there was much adulting this week. I’m not sure I’ll ever look forward to figuring out the taxes, or cleaning the litter box, or waiting in a long line at the store, and why is the fish fertilizer so stinky? If I pause, though, (as I am doing right now, because I am stuck, waiting for a call, and there is nothing else to do), I remember that I am lucky and blessed to get to do these adulting things in the first place. We are lucky to have a cat, who we picked up from the shelter years ago, and I am grateful that my son loves him, and that the cat is healthy and uses his litter box because not all old cats do, and that the cat is occasionally sweet. I am grateful that I am able to stand in a long line, that my legs are strong and carry me places and allow me to wait until it is my turn. I am grateful that we live in a place where people don’t complain too much about standing in line. There was a lot of grace for the overworked clerks at the store the other day.
I am grateful for all that our taxes provide us: the roads that we drive on, the clean water that flows into my home, the school that I drive my son to, the Covid vaccines that all of us are receiving for free. All this and so much more.
(OK. It’s a little annoying that I cut my walk at the park short so I would be back here in the office in case the phone rang right at 1:00 pm. Because now it is 2:00 pm.)
I’m glad, though, that I have a comfortable place to sit and wait. A phone to receive a call on. A voice that will allow me to talk. When they call. Which, hopefully, will be soon.
Epilogue: Somewhere after 2 pm, I tried to send a text to my client who had a 2:45 pm appointment. It didn’t go through at first. The connection was weak. The horror! Could this mean that I missed the important call somehow, because the phone signal in the room was inadequate? Sometimes, it had been feeble in the past, and I had to finish calls in the parking lot. In a panic, I texted my sweet daughter and asked her to call me. She humored me, even though she must have thought that I was overreacting, just a smidge. Her call came right through. Still, though? What if there had been a blip in my service? This was so troubling!
My infinitely patient client with the 2:45 appointment didn’t mind waiting until 3 pm, because the call was supposed to come between 1:00 and 3:00. When it didn’t, we finally started her session at 3:10 or so. I focused on her, trying to forget the entire phone call fiasco, but was also worried a little about who I needed to contact to let them know that I had thought I was available, but maybe there was a mess up with my phone, and I am so sorry and how to fix it?
At 3:36 pm, the phone rang.
Really?
My infinitely patient client told me that it was fine to take the call, that she would just chill on the massage table for a bit.
In the end? The nice lady on the other end looked at whatever she was supposed to look at, and apologized, saying there was a mix up, that everything was fine, that I shouldn’t have received a letter, that they didn’t need to talk to me after all.
My mom used to say, “That goes to prove something, but I’m not sure what.” I couldn’t agree more. But I sure wish that when these things happen, these nerve wracking “maybe I did something wrong and didn’t know it” times, that I could grow to a place where I didn’t worry so much in the middle of it all. Even better? To grow to a place where I didn’t worry at all, like the lilies of the field, the birds of the air.
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