The Trouble With Waitlists
A few weeks ago I applied for an opportunity, which resulted in a very nicely-worded email informing me that I had so much potential, I was being placed on a waitlist.
I can’t explain why, exactly, but this made me bristle more than if the message received had said I was a joke and shouldn’t have even bothered applying. The reality is, the chouchou email actually encouraged me to apply again should a spot not open up this time around.
Pause.
I am not vicious. I appreciate deep kindness and taking the time to write a rejection letter that feels more like a warm washcloth than antiseptic spray. Call me a frog who will sit in boiling water, just so long as the heat spike is gradual.
But for whatever reason, this particular sentiment was pungent. It felt like a the jarring bone bite in a mouthful of roasted salmon. The wrong texture; dangerously slim.
The trouble with waitlists is, have I not already been waiting? This name discredits the waiting I have already done. To where am I being ushered for this? I was waiting to hear news and then informed I would need to begin waiting. As waiting room to gurney. Let me at least still have on my clothes. I can handle vulnerability when I am still clothed. Once I am undressed with we don’t want you unless we need you, I am no longer good for hoping.
I am not angry or bitter. Look, this was last week and I have already moved on to other word selections that irritate me. The rug burn of syntax: a very rare condition indeed.
***
When I go for walks in my neighborhood, there is one street toward the end of my preferred route that surprises me every time with a memory. I always forget about it until I pass the house where I witnessed a short exchange I, apparently, am marked to recall forever. A line of sinew in the cut of steak that will not release no matter how you chew. Call it cud.
Years ago, as I passed this house, an old, grey car pulls up to the curb and out of its womb, a man. I know this type of man: 65, on a second wife, disappointed with his life, ironically a disappointment to his life, too. Out of the house bounds a young boy, crewcut and beaming. Hi dad! I should have held my breath in preparation for the response, but no amount of air in your lungs can buoy you above the precision of a letdown.
Just you?
***
For people who give the gift of their present-minded energy, it can be a disaster when they meet neglect. To be passed over with your nervous little hands still working their mannerisms of possibility leaves a question and a blow. You dog-ear that. You reference it years later wondering why the page is triangled downward. You read it again. And, oh yes, that.
It takes great energy to try. To apply. To read the email. To join the keep-waiting list. To open the front door and parade-wave at the grey car. To show up as your whole, little body, great as you can muster.
***
Years later, I wonder about that boy. Probably twelve or so now. I’ve never seen anyone there since. Sometimes I pray for him. Sometimes I just feel the sadness of the message he received that said the presence of just him was somehow not enough. That someone else, something else, was expected or hoped for. Whether or not he grasped it, it was sowed. I believe the message was subconscious to all of us. Except I’m a poet, so the subconscious is actually where I look first.
***
We keep showing up. That’s how this ties together. We open doors and dash through and wave at what’s coming toward us. We make good impressions. Sometimes, what arrives wants something else, or keeps going past. Every now and then, what we want wants us back. We call that joy. Sometimes we call it assurance.
But when we are asked to stand still while others are assessed, to be willing to fill a hole in case the first option falls through, this is a painful system. Or maybe it is only painful for me. Is it stubborn to want to be either chosen or left alone? I put on my favorite shirt and the jeans without holes, and now I am standing very expectant with a nondescript expression until I know which way I will feel. I don't like it at all.
***
I wish I had stopped. I wish I had said, just you is more than enough. No need to wait for anyone else to complete the story of today.