SpanishRed

Waiting for a Life that Never Happens

Added 2024-06-01 07:40:46 +0000 UTC

In my favourite play, “Waiting for Godot,” two men head to a tree and wait. That’s it. That’s the entire play. By the end, nothing has happened. No progress has been made. We don’t even find out who Godot is or why we’re waiting. That’s beside the point, which is that we all spend our lives waiting for something that never happens.

When I was 20, I was waiting for a grand career and a husband. A baby might have been nice, too.

When I was 25, I found out it isn’t easy to start a marriage or have a baby when you’re ill, so I was waiting for good health.

When I was 27, I learned I didn’t even want a baby, so I began waiting for a picket fence and some dogs.

When I was 30, I decided picket fences weren’t for me. I had a new career, so I was waiting for it to take off.

By 40, I lost track of what I wanted my life to become, so I waited for a sign of what I was supposed to be waiting for.

These days, I don’t know much better. I still feel a sense of waiting.

But Godot never arrives. The life I wanted never arrived either. The present moment is all I’m going to get, and it’s the same for you. I always thought that life was a huge event, so I waited for exactly that, but it’s really just built from dog cuddles, Scrabble with friends, and Sunday morning coffee.

You know how the cliché goes: Life is what happens when you’re making other plans. Life is what happens when you’re waiting for Godot.

Some people say Godot is the missing piece we all think we need in order to feel complete. Maybe the only way to feel complete is to stop waiting for Godot. Maybe the only way is to celebrate the things we have right now.

"But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late!" -Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot