The Forgotten Art of Waiting

This morning, I forgot my phone at home while taking the kids to the bus stop.

Five minutes of waiting.

Normally nothing.

But without my phone, those five minutes felt strangely sharp.

The kids asked me,

“How much more?”

And I felt that small panic rise too—

because I genuinely didn’t know.

I couldn’t check.

I couldn’t confirm.

I couldn’t control.

And it struck me how uncomfortable the in-between has become.

Not just here.

Everywhere.

We feel it in the pause after sending a message

and watching the double-ticks stay grey.

We feel it when someone says,

“Let me get back to you,”

and our stomach tightens because… when? why not now?

We feel it when life is not giving a clear yes or a clear no,

and we don’t know what to do with the silence.

Even the two minutes of microwave heating—

we pick up our phones to avoid being alone

with those two minutes.

The in-between used to be quiet.

Now it feels like a threat.

Standing at that bus stop,

I realised it wasn’t the waiting that unsettled me.

It was who I became inside it—

the part that wants certainty right now,

the part that hates not knowing,

the part that believes everything is slipping if it’s not constantly monitored.

And this is exactly the part I see unfolding in sessions.

The woman waiting for a reply from someone she loves—

her entire self-worth suspended in a three-hour gap.

The man waiting for life to finally “start” for him—

checking job portals at 2am because the silence feels like failure.

The mother waiting for emotional closeness with her teenager—

feeling rejected in every pause,

as if a delay is a verdict.

The in-between does not just test patience.

It exposes fear.

It shows us all the places where trust has thinned.

All the places where we don’t feel held by life.

All the places where we want shortcuts

because being with ourselves feels too raw.

This morning wasn’t about the bus.

It was about the version of me

that can’t bear a gap long enough

to hear her own thoughts.

If you’re living in that uncomfortable in-between too,

I can sit with you there—

not to rush you out of it,

but to help you hear what that silence has been trying to show.