Hold On

I had one of those productive-but-frustrating appointments on Thursday morning, the kind that leaves me bristling with resentment in the moment but settled into a better, more balanced place a mere thirty minutes or so later.

As I won’t stop internet (and real-life) shouting in recent weeks, I’m in the middle of a huge developmental leap. Seemingly overnight, I’ve mastered new skills and hit milestones I wasn’t sure I ever would. The process has been hugely motivating, and I’ve been able to leverage each bit of progress to push myself forward.

Unsurprisingly, I keep wanting more.

I don’t think that’s a negative, in this case, since my mildish dissatisfaction isn’t preventing me from enjoying and appreciating how far I’ve come. Still, it’s as if I’m being offered a snack when what I crave is a full-on buffet-style meal. (Excuse the food simile. I guess it’s in poor taste [groan] given one of my major medical conditions, but my appetite for wordplay is insatiable [double groan].) The difference is that unlike in the past, I’m now listening to my hunger and doing my best to give my body what it needs.

Before I veer even further off course, lemme return to the appointment that this post is ostensibly about.

I went into it with a set agenda, and I was unrealistically confident that having the doctor in question sign off on what I was requesting was more or less a matter of ticking a box. Much to my surprise, alarm, and consternation, she suggested that I wait four weeks before making the change. Her logic was sound: even if I don’t really require the service that I’m eager to stop, reinstating it if we cancelled it prematurely would be a big challenge. She was thus hesitant to jump the gun. I made my case; she held her ground. Once I realized that there was no way I would sway her, I agreed to reevaluate in a month.

I was still pretty worked up when I debriefed with my husband, but he helped me reframe this as another opportunity. Rather than stew in bitterness, then, I’m going to continue making sustained, sustainable improvements so that the next time I meet with this doctor I can present her with concrete evidence that I’m ready to move on without this particular support.

I’m reminded of a song I associate with a family member. He’d sing it to me almost every time I saw him when I was little, and I can still hear it clear as day. The first two lines are especially sharp in my mind, and I return to them with relative frequency. They serve as an important prompt when my impatient excitement starts getting the best of me.

Simon & Garfunkel’s “The 59th Street Bridge Song.” Look it up.

So here I am, holding on. In a pragmatic, joyful way, not in a bad one. There’s nothing wrong with lingering somewhere in between more clearly delineated phases for a while; there’s nothing wrong with solidifying gains before leaving the past behind. This doesn’t have to be a type of purgatory. Instead, it can be a preview of whatever comes next.