The Art of Waiting

I'm home alone, which is weird.  I don't think I have been home alone, at least not for more than a couple of hours, since sometime in July.  In the past, home alone was a relatively common occurrence, as my husband was called upon to be away for work days or even weeks at a time.  In the last few years, it has been a more minimal amount.  In the last few months, it has been not at all.  We have been waiting.  A lot.  Not waiting for him to leave, so much as waiting for his next contract to start.

It seems like we get wrapped up in a waiting period like this every couple of years; far more often than I would have imagined when I was younger and considered what the life of a grown-up entails.  In my late teens and early twenties, I was vaguely aware that momentous events would occur in adulthood.  I knew that I might get married, or choose not to...I knew that I would likely move to another state or country...I knew that I could experience illness or the loss of a loved one.  There was a strong possibility that I might change careers, or face the disappointment of not landing a certain coveted job.  I did not spend as much time imagining or planning my future as I now think I should have, but I suspect that even if I had, it would have never occurred to me to plan for how to handle long and relatively frequent periods of waiting for outside forces to ascertain major parameters of the timing and geography of my daily life.