Wait’s Prey.

The one thing that you are in complete control of is the hunting ground in which you reside – or whether you live in one at all. 

I realise now, more than ever, that I have been Wait’s prey – a victim of its teeth which had not only pierced my skin but ripped through my soul.

Do you know what that feels like? To be tracked down and hunted? To be caught in the glare of something that you cannot see but you can feel the weight of? That right there is what waiting around has done to me. Because unlike the hunting ground, you cannot control the thing it is that you’re waiting on. 

For far too long I was held in suspense by letting someone or something else hold the reigns of my life. I’ve waited for a text, a call, some form of notice, a letter, a sign, a month, time – and when it finally came, in all its many forms, I was entirely underwhelmed. 

It was then, after the fanfare had died down and the band began packing up, I realised that waiting on anything or anyone to clue me in was where was losing the battle. To build up an outcome in the absence of truth – or, in fact, any information at all – really does some damage when you finally do get the thing you’ve been waiting on.

There’s been times I’ve waited so long that I’ve forgotten what it is I’m waiting for while still feeling the drag and grind of suspense. 

What I felt was a detachment. 

Not only from the source of my Waiting, but from long periods of my time spent Waiting. Sometimes, detachment serves as clarity and maybe that is what most of us need after all. 

So, I’ve since stopped waiting and started doing – everything and anything else. It wasn’t so much a distraction than me choosing to put my energy elsewhere; unbeknownst to me, I was stepping out of the hunting ground and into civility. 

But civility, in this moment, felt somewhat wilder and more animalistic than my former residence, because I found I could breathe again. 

Deep guttural breaths of air no longer second hand to the one breathing down my neck. The kind of breaths that fill your lungs and makes you sit up so fast it almost hurts. This air was mine. 

What had solidified in me as a need for something, now presented itself to me as a want. I don’t want anything I don’t need. In abandoning my acceptance of Waiting, I have given my detachment Reason. 

My very own blessing; I’d mistaken Wait’s appetite for permission long enough – for that reason, I’ll forever eat the best bite first. 

‘Deep guttural breaths of air no longer second hand to the one breathing down my neck.’