The Waiting Room
Before I had children waiting rooms served one purpose. They were a place to wait. I’d look forward to those few quiet moments to flip through the pages of a Better Homes and Gardens stashed in the pile of outdated magazines. I would exhale. I would zone out. I would be still. Then, I would hear my name called and forget I was ever there.
As a mom, and especially as a special needs parent, I very often find myself in waiting rooms. However, the waiting is altogether different…
When I’m waiting for my child to complete testing with the school psychologist, or finish a session of occupational therapy, or therapeutic gymnastics, or swimming lessons, the list goes on, it’s never a time of exhale. I am zoned way in. I am far from still. It’s often a time of held breath. It’s a time of anxiety. I am almost always lending one ear to the task of waiting for signs of the session going awry or hear myself be beckoned to the room. I can pretend to flip through the pages of a tattered magazine left for waiting parents, but it’s just to fill the time with any kind of distraction. That is, unless there is another waiting parent there. That’s when magic happens.
In these places of waiting, special needs parents find each other. We are all so desiring of community and relationship with people in our same, or similar situation, that when you sit two of us in a room together, we just get to chatting. A smile. A greeting. Then, before you know it, you’ve exchanged stories, you have shed the anxiety that you may have entered the waiting with and are sad when the waiting time ends. You might, in the case of a recurring appointment, get to see this parent again. You might not.
Regardless of that, in the midst of these sometimes frantic days, you connected with someone who gets it. You were given the gift of a pause, a judgement-free exchange and probably even a shared laugh or tear.
I skip out of these chance meetings feeling so heard and so understood and with such an incredibly full cup. What’s even more magical is when a bonafide friendship begins to form in the waiting room. I’ve experienced that a few times on this road. Imagine that, meeting a person in a waiting room, of all places, and bonding nearly instantly over this shared journey. You just never know who might be waiting with you.
I can admit that those peaceful days of leisurely and seemingly carefree times of solitude and reflection were nice. Okay, very nice. They were maybe even dreamy. I can share too, that this new type of waiting is far more fulfilling.
If you find yourself waiting nervously for your child to finish up their speech session, pick your head up from that magazine, or from your phone, and look around that room. Drum up some conversation with the parent next to you. Even if it feels clumsy or awkward at first, don’t let that stop you. Push through and take a chance. Odds are they are desiring connection, too. You will both be blessed by interacting, and you may just make a treasured new friend.
Written by BreAnn Tassone
