{"id":5337,"date":"2015-08-28T23:02:22","date_gmt":"2015-08-29T03:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=5337"},"modified":"2019-05-15T13:48:38","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T17:48:38","slug":"day-53-waiting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=5337","title":{"rendered":"Day 53: Waiting"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am waiting for Tom to get home. He’s 20 minutes later than he should be, so I assume he is dead.<\/p>\n

This is how my mind works. A survival technique: Expect the worst, and you will be pleased when it doesn’t happen.<\/p>\n

If it does happen, you’ll be ready.<\/p>\n

You might call this worrying, but it is more focused than that. Worrying is generalized. This is specific: If a person is late, they are dead. It’s just a matter of waiting for the call.<\/p>\n

There is no point in rationalizing. My mind has an answer for everything. Traffic, maybe? But not this late in the evening. He made a stop? But he texted me that he’d already gotten the booze for the weekend.<\/p>\n

I play brain games on my iPad. I look out the window. I move the car so that he can have the better parking spot. These are acts of defiance, my way of saying, “No, I don’t believe you, morbid fears. Go away.”<\/p>\n

Finally when it seems he could not possibly be arriving tonight, or ever, I decide to meditate. I set the timer for 10 minutes and close my eyes.<\/p>\n

I see car wreckage. I see police lights. I erase everything and try again. Floating. Reaching for calm.<\/p>\n

And then I know. He will be here before the timer goes off.<\/p>\n

Floating. Calm.<\/p>\n

I hear the car. I open my eyes. 56 seconds to go.<\/p>\n

He is here. Made another stop close to home for groceries. Got stuck behind a 15-mile-an-hour driver, as happens at night on the mountain roads.<\/p>\n

“I’m glad you’re home,” I say. And smile.<\/p>\n

Today’s penny is an old one.\u00a0It’s been waiting for 41 years to get this special attention – the same number of years that the universe made me wait\u00a0to find Tom.<\/p>\n

\"Day<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[Clock image: Public Domain Pictures<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am waiting for Tom to get home. He’s 20 minutes later than he should be, so I assume he is dead. This is how my mind works. A survival technique: Expect the worst, and you will be pleased when it doesn’t happen. If it does happen, you’ll be ready. You might call this worrying, … read more Day 53: Waiting<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[317],"tags":[193,105,62,20,183],"class_list":["post-5337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beauty","tag-193","tag-death","tag-time","tag-tom","tag-waiting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5337"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5371,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5337\/revisions\/5371"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}