The Gift of a Long Line – Thoughts on Waiting
Sometimes it feels like it’s hard to see things as a gift. Somethings are easier to see than others – family, friends, often even material things – those can feel like gifts. There are somethings, however, that feel much more like an inconvenience instead of a gift. Waiting – waiting feels like it’s definitely one of those things, an inconvenience not a gift. It’s rare that we’d ever associate waiting with being a good thing, let alone something to be desired. I dare to argue though, that in many cases waiting can be a very good thing and the gift can be found in the waiting.
It’s spring time, which usually means Spring Break for those of us with children or those of us in school. My family and I were fortunate enough to escape the cold of early spring in Michigan and head south to warmth and sunshine of Florida. Like most people vacationing Florida, we spent a fair amount of time in the world of Disney. Now, in reading this sentence and that word, Disney, I would imagine that some thoughts may already come to mind. Some good and some bad depending on your past experiences and stories you’ve heard about Disney World. I would dare to say there’s some truth in both the good and the bad. One of my favorite parts of the trip, however, may not be what anyone would imagine. I would dare to argue that there is a profound gift in waiting in line.
Hopefully I haven’t lost you in saying that, and if I haven’t, allow me to explain why. We live in a busy world that seems to get busier each and every day. Thanks to our smart phones and smart watches, it feels like we’re never unreachable and we can always find something to do with our time. Whether that be checking an app, a newsfeed, an email or that day’s latest Wordle. While this may be a part of life as we know it, I’m not sure it’s necessarily the best thing for our overall well-being. I wrote previously about The Badge of Busyness and how easy it is to wear it proudly. In that busyness, we tend to see waiting as an inconvenience in our lives. What if it’s not an inconvenience, but actually a gift?
I’ve tried as much I can on family vacations to disconnect from my ‘normal’ world. That typically equates to less time on my phone, which then usually results in a much more present and better me. When you’re in a massive theme park with thousands upon thousands of people and families you get some great people watching. You see kids running away from their parents, siblings holding hands and simultaneously fighting as they walk, parents just trying to hold it all together and so much more. Inevitably, in a place like this you’re going to spend a fair amount of time in lines waiting, whether that be for food or the next attraction.
Surprisingly enough, the long lines are one of my favorite parts of a vacation. Long lines tend to have a cycle to them when it comes to the behaviors of families.
There’s the initial excitement of getting in line and awaiting what’s to come
There’s the mental math of looking around at the rest of line and judging rather or not “this one” is going to be moving fast or not – let’s be honest, no one knows.
There’s the realization that you’re in this for the long haul, you’ve committed, there’s no going back now. It’d be ridiculous to get out of line now.
There’s the children realizing this too and starting to ask the notorious vacation question “Are we there yet?” or “How much longer?” This usually comes out in a whiny voice that cuts right to the soul of their parent.
Then at some point something special happens – the children forget that they’re in a long line and actually start to play with each other.
No smart phones, no iPads, no tv or any other technology – just legitimate organic enjoyment of each other. They make new silly handshakes, they play “Eye Spy,” they tell silly stories of substitute teachers and classmates, they ask for the time and talk about what class they’d usually be in right now. They ask you about when you came here as a kid and what you did. Something special happens, if even for a moment, you get to connect with your children and yourself in a way that just doesn’t happen normally. And that my friends is the gift of the long line.
We ultimately will get to the end of the line, we’ll reach our destination and we’ll all give our grades on the food or the attraction that we waited so long for. We’ll say what parts we liked best or what surprised us and if we’d be willing to wait in line again for the same thing some other time.
When it’s all said and done though, the stories we talk about will be the things that happened on the way to the destination, on the way to the attraction, on the way to the goal. I wrote a previous article on Thoughts on Resilience – I wrote, “The steps are what get us to the goal, but the steps are also what we look back on and talk about once we reach our goal.”
As you go through your day, whether that be on vacation or not, perhaps joy lies in the waiting and in the journey, not just the goal or the destination. And when possible, be thankful for the gift of a long line.
