The Waiting Game

"So, when are you starting your farm project?"

"When are the builders arriving?"

"When will the Orchard and Berries be planted out?"

"When will the roadworks begin?"

"When are you going back to work"?

When? When? When?

Soon. Soon. Soon.

Soon was a perfectly acceptable answer for many months but now the Kids are growing impatient and starting to ask "but when is soon?" I'm starting to wonder myself.

Remember our Farm Project? We're playing the waiting game on starting it and it feels like the final weeks of a pregnancy when you know the baby will arrive at some point but you have no idea exactly when that will be. It could be today or it could be in a few weeks time. It's definitely going to happen, but when? Who knows? Every day as you get closer and closer to the exciting moment when you will meet your precious bundle so too does the frustration of waiting. In the meantime you feel like taking the phone off the hook, avoiding the school gate and staving off any well meaning questions at the corner store with "won't be long. Any day now. Almost there. Soon.". It all gets a bit exhausting so you resort to hibernating inside the home and fear you are heading to loopyville when you start googling the definition of "soon" because you are sick to death of hearing that word come out of your mouth a thousand times a day and desperately need an alternative answer. It appears there isn't one. I just looked. Sigh. 

We are so close now. So close that there is just a teeny tiny signature separating the dream from a reality. A reality that will see me bursting with excitement again, building something from nothing, growing things, making things and welcoming people to our farm. It has all been going to plan but because there is so much at stake I'm growing impatient. The piece of paper could be signed today or it could be in a few weeks. It's almost 99% likely it will happen but I don't know when and until I see that signature on the piece of paper there is a slim chance it may not happen at all. If it doesn't happen we simply continue on with the original Plan and will get there in the end. Daniel assures me this is all part of the ups and downs of starting your own business. All this capital-raising and deal-making phase is the stuff he thrives on. Me? Not so much.

This morning I woke up to an incredible fog. It was so eerie and beautiful but I felt flat because all I could think of was that it was now Winter and we need to get things planted this season. Time is ticking and I am oh so tired of the waiting and the wondering. This project has been dominating so much of my time and mental energy, so much so that I have purposely avoided talking about it in this space because I've been living it so intensely and need a break from it when I open up the laptop in the evenings. We are at the end of the long, steep climb up the rollercoaster and I'm slowly running out of puff. I can only hope as I reach the top and roll over the precipice that my energy will return and I'll be able to match the fast and furious crazy ride down that I know awaits me. In the meantime, there will be knitting, and lots of it, lest my fingernails get chewed down to the wick.

Are you playing the waiting game on something right now?

Mel xxx