The Call
On stillness, waiting, and the urge to move
I look at the phone again. I check it’s not on silent mode. It isn’t. They haven’t called but they should any minute now. They said two to three months. They are still within that window. I keep reminding myself of this to make the wait more bearable, but it is not working. Every day that goes by just adds to the anxiety.
It’s not the first time in my life I wait for a call, an email, or a letter. I remember how anxious I was when I applied to university and was awaiting confirmation of my admission. And I still remember the overwhelming feeling of pride and accomplishment when they called me to tell me the good news.
I also remember the numerous times I applied for jobs. The wait. The silence you get most of the time. The joy of getting the interview followed by the disappointment of not going through to a next round. Eventually, the coveted positive response that takes a weight off your shoulders and you start thinking about your first day in the new job.
Almost always the long awaited response was triggered by something I applied to, something I sought and wished for. Many times it has impacted the course of my life. In most cases, it has taken me where I wanted to go. Sometimes, it has made me course-correct or consider another option. It was always about in which direction to move. Movement was never a question.
This time, it is different. It feels like there is no cross-road or road, even. It’s a hard stop. My life is on hold until I get the call from the clinic confirming the date of the surgery. There is nothing else I can do about it other than cope. And wait. The condition doesn’t get worse. Nor better. It just stays as is.
I feel stuck. I want to move. Paradoxically, it’s the stillness that makes me restless.
My sabbatical is to a certain extent now on hold, too. While I am not at work and have time on my hands, what I can do is limited by the pain itself or by my mind not being able to think about something else. The more anxious I feel, the less I can focus.
The sabbatical was meant to be a stop. Just not this way.
I wanted to pause from 25 years of uninterrupted work. I needed to step back, have the time and space to think what the next years could look like, mark the transition from the first half of my working life to what comes next. I was supposed to be in the driving seat. But I’m not. Someone in the clinic’s planning department in charge of scheduling surgeries is.
One of my father’s go-to proverbs has always been “To not go forward is to go backward” and at some point, I made it my own. I believed in progress, in becoming better every day. I’m used to movement, I have always valued it and so have those around me. I believed in not standing still, in aiming high. In having aspirations. Ambition. Although I never defined any of these. I just took a definition others handed me as well as the belief that I had to have something to show as a proof of growth: a new role, more responsibilities, a packed agenda, a stressful life. Now, time passes by and I’m still in the same place. Nothing seems to be changing. So I feel left behind… but by whom? My past self? My future self? Others? This is new for me. It’s strange to be indefinitely stopped at a red light. Without a goal, a plan, a timeline, who am I?…
Now that I think about it: wasn’t this the purpose of the sabbatical? To attempt to give those words my own definition, to experiment, see what happens when I’m not doing what I have always done. Wasn’t this what I was looking for with the transition -bar the physical pain-? I wonder if things would be different without the wait? Would I feel less uncomfortable and anxious or is this situation actually helping me rationalise the unknowns?
I am, to a certain extent, just a patient waiting. And they will call sooner or later. Unlike me, they do have a goal, a plan and a timeline they are working towards. The call will probably last a minute or two. It will allow me to put some things in motion again, but not everything. I will still be deep into my sabbatical, asking myself the difficult questions and navigating everything that comes with it. Nobody will call me with an answer to that. It’s for me to find it.
I’m curious how my writing lands with you. If anything I share resonates (or doesn’t!), feel free to add your thoughts, your own story, or even a quiet “me too.”
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