I’m a waiter. That’s what I do now. Not a waitress. I’ve been one of those before. I don’t serve anyone. I just wait. I wait to serve. I wait for a text. I wait for Skype to get its shit together when it’s being flaky. I wait for it to be late enough to call it dinner when I start cooking. I wait until the last moment to do things. I wait for the rain to stop. I wait for some word on the immigration process. I wait for the mail to come. I wait for him to come back.
I wait for life to start.
It will. The only thing I can hope for from this time in Northern Québec is to learn French. In time (tick, tock), I will qualify for a free one-year French course for immigrants. Just have to *wait* for Citizenship and Immigration Canada to get around to stamping our papers. There’s not much to distract me from the hard death of each second right now. I had to take the battery out of a decorative clock my Canadian parents gave to the husband. It counted each second’s death too loudly.
I know that things will change. But sometimes knowing isn’t feeling. Sometimes it feels like I’m trapped in an eternal, unchanging moment of time.
At least the seconds until he comes home are limited now. They die off one by one, bringing me closer to the morning when I’ll at least have him beside me as I wait. It’s easier when he’s here. Not always easy, but easier. I still have no regrets; I never really made a choice, I just played the hand I was dealt. But I do have wishes. Wishes for time to pass, to bring new experiences, to end the monotony.
I miss my friends back home. I try not to say “back home,” as home for me now means the bed I share with my husband. And “back home” doesn’t really exist. It’s a memory of a time and place, and while the place is still there, the time has moved on. Sometimes I’ll get a message from far away friends that makes me smile until my heart is breaking. I wonder which of the faces that make me smile will never appear before me in person again. I wonder who is already a memory.
QuebecOkie 