Waiting

Depending on how we are waiting and what we are waiting for shifts waiting between an intense relationship with experiencing the present and a tangible part of our futures.

Waiting for a show to start is often filled with excitement. The anticipation of the event, it’s lead up and the buzz in the theatre becomes part of the joy of seeing a show. Without the pre-stage of anticipation to allow the space and time for excitement to build, would the show be as good? The evening out as fun?

Nervously awaiting an exam result time slows down. The summer holiday that year stretched out and the several months felt like years as the big future anticipated and hoped for was about to become possible or denied.

In the health arena, alongside the diagnosis component of health care and what the results of any test might mean for individuals, in the case of neurological care, the waiting of diagnosis has long given way to a different form of waiting.

Unable to wash and dress, to eat without assistance, people with neurological conditions wait for help to be washed, to be dressed, to be fed. The timings of these events fit only with the breath of the institution and not frequently enough to the breath and the being of the individual.

Waiting for many becomes a cyclical part of each day until waiting is turned into an approximate routine – and then it becomes named as such.