Waiting….

We spend a better part of our lives in waiting. In lines for all kinds of things, it starts as kids waiting our turn on the playground. We learn at a young age how to watch a clock. We wait for recess, for lunch, and for the last bell of the day. As we grow the things we wait for changes. That first kiss, the first time to drive, finally going to college and being on our own. Then suddenly as adults we wait on things like getting married having kids and careers. Our lives are filled with waiting.

Death does something to us when it comes to waiting. I have waited my entire life to travel. My husband traveled all the time, and once he got home he wanted to go nowhere. After he passed I decided to no longer wait. My best friend and I decided that it was time to do what we longed for. Travel. To Vegas. Now I know it is so cliche to go to Vegas. Yet here we are in our forties and neither one of us has ever been. So I found a really cool package, three days two nights at Caesar’s Palace and tickets to see Bon Jovi in a Storytellers concert and a show at Caesars. Then we had to wait three months for the day for us to leave. It felt like the longest three months ever. Like knowing you have the best Christmas gift ever but it’s only October. So we do what women do, we plan the outfits. Shopping was so much fun and it was a great distraction to all the other shit I was dealing with. Suddenly I was less than a week away from my trip and something happened. I had been working with my counselor and we talked about dating. It had only been six months since Ed had passed but I hate being alone. Not having anyone to talk to in the evenings someone to just share my day with. So without telling my counselor I joined Tinder. Let me tell you what I learned that there are some crazy people out there. Most were nice, all were just looking for a hook up. No thank you. I did enjoy reading the different profiles. One man said that for his occupation he was “the resident nudists at your place.” I laughed out loud at that and it makes me smile even to this day. When I finally told my counselor he suggested another site that would be much better for someone like me. I won’t say which one, just know this site was a much better fit for me. I quickly met someone and I will tell our story one day soon, but know that having someone to share the trip with and to talk to was priceless.

If you have never stayed at Caesar’s Palace, do so. It was exactly what I expected it to be. We were treated like VIP and it was wonderful. The rooms were beautiful and so were the views. The shopping was perfect and for the first time in months I relaxed. We did some of the things we wanted, but with the concert we couldn’t get everything in. The storyteller concert was amazing. It was a limited number of tickets sold. Only 500 in attendance. There was not a bad seat and to be able to ask him questions was thrilling. I had three months to think about what question I would ask. I play guitar and sing so I wanted a question that would encourage him to tell an actual story. If you read my blog any at all you know that I was raised with a musician and married one. So the question came easily. As a player you learn that all guitars have personalities and once you bond with one, it is your go to. When you learn something new, when you write, when you just need to play to just feed your soul. So my question was simple, “What is your go to guitar? When you are at home and just need to play, what do you play on?” The story that came with that was amazing! It was a long one and made people laugh. It was the perfect personal question. Just so you know if you ever see him in concert and he pulls out a black acoustic Takamine with the initials SC 95 in the top left side. Those are the initials of the man that taught him how to play and the year that he passed away. A good story indeed. I loved his last statement to us, “So when it comes to choosing a guitar, I fist ask it if it is going to tell me a story. Some do and some are bitches.”

Having the rest of the weekend opened we decided that since we were so close we fitting the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon in as well. Some of my other post have Grand Canyon pictures in them. The place was so spiritual for me. I found a beautiful spot to just sit and close out the world and meditate. It is where I found God again. Not that I had lost him or that he lost me, I had just been to pissed to even talk to him. Yet I knew something, I had been telling my counselor that I had a feeling that the trip to Vegas was the beginning of something. It ended up being the start of many things of me realizing that even though I’m forty, I can still dream. And I can still chase those dreams. And that even though God had taken my husband, he still had a good plan for my life. His plan is one that I couldn’t even come up with but has all the promise that the life I thought I had planned out did. Life may not be the same as it was with Ed, but it is still a wonderful life and while Ed is no longer on this Earth, he is still with me and my children as we travel and see all the things we longed to.

I think back to all the years of waiting. Waiting to feel like my life has started, you know as a young kid we tell ourselves that we will be living when we can drive or when we are out on our own, we all have that next step in mind that says we are starting life. For me I spent years feeling like mine was on hold, reality is, I am the one who kept hitting the pause button. I am no longer waiting to live. Because living is involved in every single one of those steps. What I learned meditating at the Grand Canyon is this, be present, be in the moment, be in the memory. Stop waiting to live and just do it, because we already spend so much time waiting, don’t lose anymore.

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