The Waiting Room

Fortunate for me, mine was the front bedroom of our house at 11511 Lanewood Circle. From my room there, I could look out upon the street and world I lived in then and only wait...wait. I often wondered why I waited, or if actually what I was waiting for was really worth it? I wondered: those winter nights when the frozen steel-framed windows sweated like a brow and pooled on the sill below; the summer nights, windows cranked open to capture a slight   breath of breeze...a measure of moonlight; some anxious school nights, dreading the next day's assessment or oral presentation; the weekends, worrying will she want to be with me like I long to be with her. As adolescents are, our rooms now the substitute security blankets we were forced to abandon as we grew older. They become that silent secret friend we can confide in, curse and cry in. Yet, my room always a welcomed refuge awaiting me with an embrace for my sorrows behind closed doors and turned-out lights, lying there alone whenever it was I felt defeated, discouraged, or disciplined. Waiting in my room for whatever I thought I might do, but never did because it wasn't true; what I hoped would be and soon became to me right and just as pure.