The waiting game

I have always hated waiting. Which is why I have a rather interesting bruise on my leg now. Being the impatient type, I pulled a weight off a bar at the gym a couple of days ago but forgot the cardinal rule of such actions: always watch what you are doing. But, as always, I was in a hurry, yanked at the heavy ring, got distracted by a lovely BMW edging into its parking space downstairs and did not see that there was a minor weight blocking the way of the heavier weight I was after. Et voila! It shaved past my leg, narrowly missed my littlest toe and bumped to the floor with a loudish thud that attracted more attention to my silliness than I would have liked. I got yelled at by my trainer, who had stopped for a moment to correct someone’s position and wanted to know why I was in such a rush; I got yelled at by another trainer who normally takes my measurements once a month who pulled me away from the rapidly descending weight; and I got yelled at by the muscle in my mid-calf which is now turning a delightful shade of deep blue.

But that is not why I am gently complaining. Bumps, bruises and aches have been a part of my life ever since I learned how to walk and probably during that process as well. What I am really grouching about is the fact that I seem to spend a great deal of my time waiting. Which I hate doing. As a result, I run madly from hither to yon and further afield trying to catch up with myself and rarely taking time off to smell the…well…roses, except that in this weather and in Mumbai, roses are found more in florist shops than in gardens. And even if I do pause to take a deep sniff, I am usually en route to doing something else, which means that there is a deadline and a definite time frame for it all.

I think that is where the problem is. I seem to be on that perennial watch-the clock runabout, causing me to fall up stairs, bash various parts of my anatomy on whatever hurdle happens to be in my path and generally be more self-destructive than I need to be. And even that is not the problem. The real problem here is that I rarely find anyone else on the same kind of deadline-run mode as I am. Which means that while I have it all planned, those plans hardly ever fit in with anyone else’s, which leads me back to where I started – waiting. Right now, it is for someone to send me an important email. Most of the time, it is for people to call back when they say they will, which they never do. And some of the time it is for the milk to boil, the maid to arrive, the courier to ring the bell, the vet to call, the dentist to switch on the gizmo that makes your whole jaw rattle in that horrible way, the tailor to finish that blouse, the lead story for the edit page to be approved, the article for the cover to be sent…it is that endless cycle that makes my teeth clench and my nerves start their inevitable frazzle.

And for some reason, I never can fit in with deadlines that I do not set. If someone says ten minutes, I look for that ten minute interval to be over. If someone says next week, I expect next week to happen – which it will, though whatever is to happen that next week rarely does. If someone says ‘soon’, I get terribly wound up into a tight knot, never knowing when the soon will come, but knowing that I will, invariably, inevtibly, have to wait for it.