Why Am I Always Waiting?

Q:

"I feel like I'm always waiting for my life to start. When I was younger, I couldn't wait to get to high school. Then I got there, and suddenly I was waiting for the next thing. Now I'm waiting for summer. After that, I'll probably be waiting for next year, then seminary, then whatever comes after that. 

It's like I'm always looking ahead to some future version of my life. The weird thing is that when I finally get to the thing I've been waiting for, it never feels the way I imagined it would. I might be excited for a little while, but then I start looking ahead again.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll always be this way. What if I spend my whole life waiting for the next stage instead of actually enjoying the one I'm in? How do I stop feeling like my real life is somewhere in the future?"

— Always Waiting

Dear Always Waiting,

What you're describing is something a lot of girls feel and almost nobody talks about. The forward pull. The sense that wherever you are right now is somehow the rehearsal, and the real thing is still coming. You've been living inside that feeling for long enough that it's starting to worry you, and I want you to know that noticing it the way you did, asking the question you asked, is already something.

Here's what I want to point out first. This isn't just about excitement or impatience. The way you describe it, the arriving, the brief spark, and then the almost immediate shift toward the next thing, sounds less like enthusiasm and more like a habit your mind built without you noticing. At some point, looking ahead became the default. Not because you're ungrateful, and not because anything is wrong with you. But because at some point, focusing on what's coming next felt easier than being fully inside what's happening now. 

That's worth sitting with. Because sometimes we look forward not because the future is exciting, but because the present feels uncertain, or uncomfortable, or just harder to be in than we want to admit. The future is still unwritten, so it can still be perfect. Right now is already messy and real.

The thing is, the future you keep moving toward is going to feel just as real once you get there. And then your mind will start doing exactly what it's doing now.

That's not a prediction meant to discourage you. It's an invitation to look at what you're actually carrying right now that makes right now feel hard to stay in. Because there's usually something there. A pressure, a worry, a sense that this stage should already feel different than it does. Once you can name it, the pull toward the future starts to lose some of its grip.

You don't have to figure out how to love every moment or force yourself to stop thinking about seminary. You just have to get a little more honest about what today is actually asking of you, and whether you've been too busy thinking about later to really answer it. Sometimes the better question isn't ‘When will my real life start?’ but ‘What can I do with today?’

Your life isn't in the future. It's right here, waiting for you to show up for it.

With warmth,

Estie

Ready to start feeling like yourself again?

Reach out today for a free consultation.

Estie Ashlag, AAPC

Certified Life Coach, Refuah Institute