Suspended: the tension that builds up in waiting mode
The days, hours and minutes before a much anticipated event
(This is an audio version of this letter, recorded by me, imperfectly and without editing. I hope you enjoy listening.)
Hello, I’m Philippine and to be honest, I feel like a beginner at life – I am forever trying to make sense of it. You can find my attempts at this, plus reflections, musings and experiences right here, in my newsletter. Subscribing is free! For everyone who feels like a beginner at life, and wants to connect in some way.
I’ve got a little news. I’ve just started a new job. It’s a little job, but it is a big step after all these years of burnout and long Covid. I deliberately say it is a big step, not it feels like one, because even though it feels significant, it also feels like a natural and organic next step.
For once I haven’t pushed or forced myself into it – it just felt right. Yet if you would have told me even a month before I had the idea, I would’ve declared you mad and panicked at even the notion. But however painful the spontaneity of it may be for the planner that I am, equally painless for letting it happen with such ease and self-evidence.
Okay, not pure ease perhaps. It started out with an inkling that very quickly grew to a real life fact. But when the reality of having my first work day drew closer, a sense of tension built inside of me. In my mind I was calm – I didn’t have many nervous or insecure thoughts going around in my head. Yet in my body the pressure was building, like I was sitting in a waiting room for an extended period of time – suspended.
The mere existence of this tension took over my existence. It’s similar to when you have the flu: although it isn’t an illness of the mind, it is so prominent that your brain checks out too and you can’t do anything but be ill, wait it out. That’s exactly all I could do as well, just wait out the tension until the moment that it was anticipating arrived. And so I did. I mostly just sat on the sofa and watched the entire Netflix series of Bridgerton, escaping into a different world, because at the time I could not quite inhabit my own.
Again, I wasn’t actually nervous. I wasn’t worried. I wasn’t dreading it. In fact, I knew it’d all be fine as soon as I started, as soon as I would shake the hand of a colleague, I’d be okay. The tension would ease.
And it more or less did. Everything was fine indeed. It’s only the beginning, so yes it is a little delicate still. Nonetheless, I’m sure it’ll grow only stronger. But then why was I so paralysed by this tension? Why does just one thing, that I am not even worried about, take over my entire being?
It reminds me of busy periods at school and uni, filled with studying for tests and exams. Even when I had a moment that I wasn’t studying, my mind had absolutely no space for anything else that could be just the slightest bit taxing. A tiny request, a question that required just a little bit of thinking, doing something that didn’t come completely natural to me – it was all out of the question.
That’s how I felt during this time of waiting and anticipating too (it’s better now, but not quite over yet). And it makes me feel like a failure, like I’m pathetic or lazy, like I’m doing it wrong. I want to think, ‘but you’re doing it, and that’s what counts’ and ‘it’s okay to go slow, one step at a time’. But instead I feel inadequate, and ashamed of how immobilised I am for what seems like hardly a reason, embarrassed for the amount of telly that I’m watching.
I may be forgetting one important thing here though. I myself said at the beginning of this letter that whilst it didn’t feel like a big step it certainly is one. Perhaps it feels big after all. Perhaps even though my mind was already there, my body was still experiencing the sheer depth and vastness of this change.
Like the flash of lightning that arrives before the roar of thunder, so my mind arrived at this perspective of normality regarding my new job before my body did. My brain had prepared by daydreaming and thinking it through; my body was now preparing in its own way.
This isn’t an intellectual thing, and so of course I couldn’t fix it intellectually either, not this time and not in the future when something similar happens. In fact, not only can it not be fixed with thinking, it cannot be fixed at all. And it shouldn’t. Even thoughts that tell me that this is helpful preparation instead of a horrible problem, won’t help. It’s supposed to be there, it’s maybe even supposed to feel crappy. But this is good news, I think?
What is your experience with such a feeling of anticipation completely taking over your existence?
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Congrats on the new job 🎉 it IS a big thing and so anticipation is very normal I think. Don't beat yourself up for how you're feeling, just take it day by day and like you say, the tension will ease by itself.