Waiting

I just watched the movie “Terminal”. It was not what I expected, but I did learn a thing or two.


terminal the movie

“Life is waiting”. This is the movie’s tag line. Life indeed is a long series of waiting… for the right break, for justice to be served, for a promise to be fulfilled, for the right person to come along.

But waiting is not enough. We should be ready for what we are waiting for – for the power, for the victory, for the fulfillment of a promise, for the right person.

I’d like to spend this moment to focus on the last one.

Katherine Zeta Jones was waiting for somebody to come and have a real relationship with her. Someone she need not share with anybody else. She waits and waits and in the end, when true love came, she lets it go. Tom Hanks on the other hand waited for someone like Katherine to come along, someone to take care of. But when he found her, she could not be his.

Reminds me of a song of the same title.

I have had my share of waiting. I waited for someone who never came.

Do you know how that feels? Let me give you a glimpse. You wake up, excited, looking forward for the day. The anticipation kills you… literally… you are out of breath and a minute lasts forever. And then the time of the meeting comes. You sit up, fix yourself, keep your eyes peeled, you turn at every movement from behind or beside you. Your stomach is churning, your head’s spinning, and your hands sweaty and cold. Then, the appointed time passes… and as time continues to drag on and on you start to worry. Then get mad. Then give up. By now, your knees are weak. Your mind goes blank. And your whole being gets sapped of its energy that just a while ago seems to flow over time. You conclude that no one would come. It is all about you. It is not meant to happen.

But what if this is not just a day? What if this is your life? A life of waiting. At what point do you say you have given up waiting and decide that no one will come? That it is time to compromise with life and pretend that even if life may never be complete, life will go on? When do you say you know you will never experience ecstasy again but it’s alright, at least you will never have to starve for another person’s attention, care, love, or be left disappointed and hurt and broken and tired?

Now I don’t even know if I waited for someone who did not even know I waited. How could you not have known?

Then again, I don’t know if it was worth the wait, if life could have been better.

“Life is waiting”. It beckons us. Hope. Time is an element I could not reckon with. It could either be my friend or my enemy.

Let it by my friend. “Please tell me you are just late.”